^  9-19-30   ) 


BV  4315  .H95 

Hutchison,  Stuart  Nye,  187 

1958. 
The  soul  of  a  child 


SEP  1  9  193' 


The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Five-Minute  Sermons  to  Children 


By 

STUART    NYE    HUTCHISON,    D.D. 

Pastor  First  Presbyterian  Churchy 

Norfolk,  Va, 


New     York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming     H.     Revell     Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


•  CVt'. 


Contents 


I. 

Giving 

9 

11. 

How  TO  BE  Wise         .         .         .         . 

13 

III. 

The  Strongest  Thing  in  the  World 

17 

IV. 

Prayers  that  God  Does  Not  Answer 

21 

V. 

Love 

•          25 

VI. 

Sand          ..... 

28 

VII. 

Owning  Up        .... 

31 

VIII. 

Why  God  DoesnV  Kill  Satan    . 

34 

IX. 

Kindness  to  Dumb  Animals 

•       39 

X. 

Forgetting  Ourselves 

•       43 

XI. 

Rocks  and  Shoals 

•       47 

XII. 

The  Building  of  a  Lighthouse    . 

•       51 

XIII. 

The  Wings  of  the  Sun 

•       55 

XIV. 

The  Hook  and  the  Bait     . 

.       59 

XV. 

Saying  "  No  "  . 

.       63 

XVI. 

The  Lion  and  the  Bear 

.       (^1 

XVII. 

Behavior  in  Church 

.       71 

xvm. 

Seeing  and  Knowing  God  . 

•       74 

XIX. 

What  Jesus  Did  When  He  Was  a  Chili 

)       78 

XX. 

I  Didn't  Mean  To     . 

.       82 

XXI. 

Small  Beginnings 

.       86 

XXII. 

Lamps         ..... 

.       90 

XXIII. 

Love  Your  Enemies    . 

.       94 

XXIV. 

God's  Jewels      .... 
7 

.       98 

8 


Contents 


XXV. 

Self-Sacrifice       .         •         •         » 

XXVI. 

Sympathy     .         .         .         .         . 

XXVII. 

The  Shepherd  Boy  Who  Became 
King 

XXVIII. 

Keeping  the  Thoughts  Pure 

XXIX. 

COVETOUSNESS            .              .              .              . 

XXX. 

Growing 

XXXI. 

Let  Your  Light  Shine  . 

XXXII. 

What  I  Want  to  Do  and  What  I 
Ought  to  Do  .         .         .         . 

XXXIII. 

Paul's  Message  to  the  Children    . 

XXXIV. 

The  Whole  Armor 

XXXV. 

The  Girdle  of  Truth  . 

XXXVI. 

The  Breastplate  of  Righteousness 

XXXVII. 

The  Shoes  of  Peace 

XXXVIII. 

The  Shield  of  Faith 

XXXIX. 

The  Helmet  of  Salvation     . 

XL. 

The  Sword  of  the  Spirit 

XLI. 

Obedience 

XLII. 

How  TO  BE  A  Home  Missionary 

XLIII. 

The  Child  Samuel 

XLIV. 

The  Obedience  of  Samuel 

XLV. 

Honesty,  or  Telling  the  Truth 
With  Our  Actions  . 

XLVI. 

Christmas     .          .          .          .          . 

XLVII. 

The  Best  Life  for  the  New  Year 

XLVIII. 

The  Resurrection 

Giving 

"  The  Lord  loveth  a  cheerful  giver." — 2  Cor.  ix.  7. 

The  Indians  of  this  country  have  a  very 
pretty  legend  about  the  leaves  and  the  birds. 
They  say  that  long,  long  ago  when  the  Great 
Spirit  was  busy  making  the  earth  beautiful, 
that  everywhere  he  stepped  there  the  trees 
and  the  plants  and  the  flowers  began  to  grow 
at  once.  The  leaves  of  the  trees  were  very 
happy  and  sang  songs  all  the  day.  But  one 
morning  the  wind  came  along  and  told  the 
leaves  that  very  soon  they  would  fall  from 
the  trees  to  the  ground  and  would  wither 
and  die  and  be  forgotten. 

This  made  the  leaves  very  sad  and  they 
forgot  for  a  little  to  sing.  But  by  and  by, 
when  they  thought  how  happy  it  made  the 
old  tree  to  hear  them,  they  began  to  sing 
again  and  forgot  all  about  what  the  wind  had 
said. 

But  sure  enough  one  day  in   the  Fall  it 

became  very  cold.     The  wind  blew  and  the 

leaves  began  to  loosen  their  hold  on  the  tree, 

and  to  fall  to  the  ground.     The  tree  had  to 

9 


lO  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

give  them  up  one  by  one  till  there  was  not  a 
single  leaf  left  on  the  sad  old  tree. 

As  they  lay  there  the  Great  Spirit  came 
walking  along  that  way.  He  saw  the  beau- 
tiful, many-colored  leaves  on  the  ground, 
and  thought  to  himself,  "  What  a  pity  to  let 
those  lovely  things  go  to  waste  1 "  So  he  de- 
termined to  make  them  live  again.  He  gave 
to  each  leaf  a  pair  of  wings  and  taught  them 
to  fly,  and  they  became  the  birds.  The  red 
oak  leaves  became  the  robin-redbreasts,  and 
the  yellow  willow  leaves  became  the  yellow 
birds,  and  the  brown  leaves  became  the  spar- 
rows and  the  swallows.  What  a  flock  of 
them  there  were !  And  they  flew  ofi  up  into 
the  trees  again.  The  trees  had  had  to  give 
them  up,  but  they  got  them  all  back,  and 
they  were  so  much  more  beautiful  than  they 
were  before. 

Now  let  me  tell  you  what  this  legend 
teaches.  It  means  that  no  one  ever  gives  up 
anything  for  God  that  He  does  not  give  him 
back  something  ever  so  much  better  and 
more  beautiful. 

Once  while  Jesus  was  here,  there  was  a 
great  host  of  very  hungry  people  out  in  the 
wilderness  who  had  had  nothing  to  eat  all 
day.  There  were  no  stores  where  they  could 
buy,  and  they  were  too  far  away  to  go  home. 


Giving  1 1 

Jesus  called  the  disciples  and  asked  them  to 
feed  the  people,  but  the  disciples  had  nothing 
to  give  them.  Then  the  Lord  commanded 
them  to  go  and  see  what  they  could  find  in 
the  crowd.  After  a  little  they  came  back 
and  told  Him  that  there  was  a  little  boy  there 
who  had  five  biscuits  and  two  small  fish.  The 
little  boy's  mother  had  given  him  some  lunch 
that  morning  when  he  came  away  from 
home,  and  he  had  not  eaten  it  yet.  And 
that  was  all  that  they  could  find  in  that  crowd 
of  thousands  of  people. 

Jesus  called  the  lad  to  Him  and  asked 
if  he  would  give  Him  his  lunch.  The  little 
boy  didn't  want  to  at  first.  He  was  hungry 
himself,  but  the  children  all  loved  Jesus  and 
so  he  gave  it  to  Him.  And  then  what  do 
you  think  that  Jesus  did  ?  He  took  that  little 
boy's  basket  of  lunch  and  He  made  it  more 
and  more  till  there  was  enough  to  feed  all 
those  thousands  of  hungry  people.  When 
they  had  all  had  enough,  He  called  the  little 
boy  to  Him  and  gave  him  back  what  was 
left.  There  were  twelve  big  baskets  full. 
There  was  so  much  that  he  couldn't  carry  it 
all.  He  had  to  ask  some  of  his  friends  to 
come  and  help  him.  He  had  given  the  Lord 
a  little,  and  the  Lord  had  given  him  more 
than  he  could  carry. 


11  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

When  he  went  home  that  night  and 
showed  his  mother  all  that  Jesus  had  given 
him,  I  am  sure  that  he  was  very  glad 
that  he  had  been  willing  to  give  up  some- 
thing for  Jesus.  Just  think  what  that  boy 
would  have  missed  and  what  those  thousands 
of  people  would  have  missed  if  he  had  been 
selfish  and  unwilling  to  let  Jesus  use  what  he 
had. 

A  good  man  once  said,  **  I  have  lived  many 
years  and  have  had  many  experiences.  There 
has  been  much  joy  in  my  life  and  there  has 
been  a  little  sadness  with  it  too.  But  I  have 
never  made  a  single  sacrifice  for  God  which 
He  has  not  repaid  many  times." 

Jesus  never  forgets  a  sacrifice  that  has 
been  made  for  Him.  He  remembers  and 
gives  back  to  the  boy  or  girl  who  has  made 
it  something  far  better  than  that  which  has 
been  given  up. 


II 

How  to  be  Wise 

**  Search  the  Scriptures." — John  v.  39. 

You  have  all  seen  the  building  with  the 
name  *'  Library "  across  the  front.  Per- 
haps the  first  time  you  saw  that  name  you 
asked  some  one  what  a  library  is.  You 
were  told  that  a  library  is  a  collection  of 
books.  The  Bible  is  a  library.  There  are 
sixty-six  books  in  it,  and  they  are  books  of 
many  different  kinds.  Some  are  history  and 
some  are  biography ;  there  are  books  of 
poetry  and  the  letters  of  great  men.  You 
can  find  them  all  in  this  wonderful  collection, 
which  we  call  the  Bible. 

Some  boy  or  girl  says,  "  I  have  tried  to 
read  the  Bible,  and  I  cannot  understand  it, 
and  I  do  not  care  to  read  anything  that  I 
cannot  understand."  But  that  is  just  because 
you  have  not  looked  in  the  right  place  in  the 
Bible. 

If  you  were  to  go  to  the  City  Library  to 

get  a  book  to  read,  you  would  not  go  to  the 

room  where  the  grown-up  people  get  their 

books.     You   would   go   into   the  children's 

13 


14  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

room  where  they  have  children's  books,  and 
you  would  ask  for  something  that  you  can 
understand.  The  Bible  is  like  that  library. 
There  are  books  there  for  men  and  women, 
and  there  are  books  for  children.  When  you 
go  into  a  library  you  do  not  take  up  the  first 
book  you  come  to  and  try  to  read  that.  If 
you  do,  of  course  you  get  one  that  you 
cannot  understand.  You  ask  some  one  who 
knows  to  tell  you  what  to  read.  That  is 
what  you  ought  to  do  when  you  read  your 
Bible.  Ask  your  father  or  mother  or  teacher 
to  show  you  where  to  find  a  book  in  the 
Bible  that  will  interest  you.  Ask  for  the 
story  of  Joseph,  or  Samuel,  or  David,  or 
Esther,  or  the  child  Jesus.  If  you  will  do 
this  you  will  find  that  there  is  no  other  li- 
brary in  the  whole  world  that  has  so  many 
splendid  stories  in  it  for  children  as  the  Bible. 

There  are  parts  of  the  Bible  that  every  boy 
and  girl  ought  to  know  by  heart.  We  all 
ought  to  be  able  to  repeat  by  heart  the 
Twenty-third  Psalm,  and  the  One  Hundred 
and  Third,  the  first  part  of  the  fifth  chapter 
of  Matthew,  and  Paul's  chapter  on  love,  the 
thirteenth  of  First  Corinthians. 

There  are  two  things  we  should  remember 
about  the  Bible.  It  was  given  to  us  to  show 
us  where  to   go.     David   once  said,   "  Thy 


How  to  be  Wise  l^ 

word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet  and  a  guide  unto 
my  path."  Did  you  ever  go  walking  in  the 
country,  where  there  are  no  bright  street- 
lights? You  tried  to  walk  in  the  path  but 
you  could  not  see  where  you  were  going. 
First  you  bumped  into  a  tree,  and  next 
stumbled  into  the  gutter,  till  you  said  to 
yourself,  "  I  must  have  a  light."  So  you 
went  back  and  lighted  a  lantern  and  started 
out  again.  Now  you  have  no  trouble,  for 
the  lantern  makes  the  path  light  for  you. 
That  is  what  David  meant  when  he  spoke  of 
the  Bible  as  a  light  for  our  feet.  It  shows  us 
plainly  where  to  go,  and  the  reason  boys  and 
girls  run  into  difficulties,  and  stumble  and  fall 
so  often  is  because  they  have  not  taken  the 
Light  for  their  feet. 

But  there  is  still  something  else  about  this 
Bible.  Paul  said  to  Timothy,  "  From  a  child 
thou  hast  known  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which 
are  able  to  make  thee  wise  unto  salvation." 
That  means  that  the  Bible  will  change  our 
lives  and  make  them  like  the  life  of  Jesus. 

Dr.  Moffat,  the  great  missionary  to  Africa, 
told  the  story  of  a  shepherd  boy  who  had  be- 
come a  Christian.  He  had  been  a  very  bad 
boy,  but  he  learned  to  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  it  made  him  gentle  and  kind  and 
thoughtful  of  others. 


i6  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

One  day  he  came  to  Dr.  Moffat  in  great 
trouble,  telling  him  that  his  big  dog  had 
found  a  piece  of  the  New  Testament  and  had 
eaten  it.  Dr.  Moffat  told  him  that  it  did  not 
make  any  difference,  that  he  would  give  him 
another  Testament.  But  that  did  not  seem  to 
make  the  boy  feel  any  better.  **  It  is  the  dog 
that  I  care  about,"  he  said. 

**  Oh,"  said  the  missionary,  "  if  your  dog 
can  crunch  a  big  bone  in  his  teeth,  it  will  not 
hurt  him  to  eat  a  little  piece  of  paper." 

**  That  isn't  it,"  said  the  boy.  **  I  was  once 
a  bad  boy.  If  I  had  an  enemy  I  hated  him, 
and  everything  in  me  wanted  to  kill  him. 
Then  you  gave  me  the  Bible,  and  I  read 
about  Jesus,  and  I  began  to  love  my  enemies, 
and  now  my  big  dog  has  got  the  Bible  in 
him,  and  he  will  be  loving  the  lions  and  let- 
ting them  help  themselves  to  the  sheep." 

That  boy  thought  that  because  the  Bible 
had  changed  him  it  would  change  his  dog 
too. 

It  will  not  change  dogs,  but  it  will  make 
boys  and  girls  every  day  more  like  Jesus. 


Ill 

The  Strongest  Thing  in  the  World 

•*  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you." — Matthew  vii.  7. 

One  of  the  first  lessons  that  we  learn  after 
we  begin  to  talk  is  to  pray.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
one  of  the  greatest  men  of  all  time,  lived  to 
be  almost  ninety  years  old,  and  he  said  that 
he  had  never  gone  to  bed  at  night  without 
kneeling  down  and  praying  that  little  prayer 
that  his  mother  had  taught  him  when  he  was 
a  baby : 

"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 
I  pray  Thee,  Lord,  my  soul  to  keep ; 
If  I  should  die  before  I  wake, 
I  pray  Thee,  Lord,  my  soul  to  take." 

When  we  pray  we  talk  to  God.  Where 
is  God  ?  Some  one  says,  "  God  is  in 
heaven."  Yes,  but  He  is  here  too.  God  is 
everywhere.  He  is  in  this  room,  and  He  is 
in  your  home,  and  along  the  street,  and  just 
everywhere.  But  some  boy  or  girl  says  to 
me,  '*  How  do  I  know  that  He  is  here  ?  I 
cannot  see  Him."  No,  of  course  you  cannot 
see  Him.  There  are  plenty  of  things  that 
17 


i8  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

you  are  not  able  to  see.  You  cannot  see  the 
wind  that  rattles  the  shutters  and  pulls  up 
your  kite.  You  cannot  see  the  electricity 
that  makes  the  cars  go  along  the  streets. 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  a  spirit  cannot  be  seen. 
When  you  pray,  you  need  not  be  afraid  that 
He  will  not  hear,  for  He  is  always  here  by 
us  when  we  speak.  He  is  so  close  to  us  that 
He  can  hear  the  softest  whispered-prayer 
that  we  ever  utter. 

•  If  I  were  to  ask  every  boy  in  this  house  to 
tell  me  what  is  the  strongest  thing  in  the 
whole  world,  probably  each  boy  would  tell 
me  something  different.  One  boy  would  say 
that  an  elephant  is  the  strongest.  Another 
would  tell  me  that  it  is  one  of  the  big  en- 
gines that  haul  those  long  trains  of  loaded 
cars  across  the  Virginia  mountains,  and  an- 
other boy  might  say  that  the  mightiest  thing 
in  the  whole  world  is  one  of  those  great 
battle-ships  out  there  in  Hampton  Roads. 

But  there  is  something  that  is  mightier 
than  any  of  these.     It  is  prayer. 

If  the  big  front  door  of  this  church  were 
locked  and  you  were  to  try  to  come  in  you 
could  not  open  it.  You  might  push  and 
pull  and  get  all  your  friends  to  help  you,  but 
you  would  not  be  able  to  move  it.  Just  then 
a  little  girl  comes  down  the  street  and  say^. 


The  Strongest  Thing  in  the  World     19 

*  I  can  open  that  door."  You  say  to  her, 
**  What,  you  open  that  door  ?  You  haven't 
half  as  much  strength  as  I  have,  and  we  all 
of  us  together  cannot  open  it."  But  the  little 
girl  takes  a  small  piece  of  steel  about  as  large 
as  one  of  her  fingers  and  puts  it  in  the  lock 
and  gives  it  a  little  turn,  and  the  door  is 
open.  That  tiny  key  in  the  little  girl's  hand 
has  done  more  than  all  of  you  together. 

Prayer  is  the  little  key  that  unlocks  the 
treasure  house,  where  God  keeps  the  good 
things  that  He  has  for  those  who  love  Him. 

Those  who  have  that  key  and  use  it  re- 
ceive wonderful  things  from  God.  Long 
ago  in  the  land  of  Israel  there  was  a  great 
drought.  There  had  been  no  rain  for  sev- 
eral years,  and  there  was  no  water  to  drink. 
The  Prophet  Elijah  went  up  to  the  top  of  a 
hill  and  prayed  to  God  to  send  some  rain. 
Then  he  sent  his  servant  to  see  if  there  were 
any  clouds  in  the  sky.  The  servant  came 
back  and  said  that  there  was  not  one.  But 
Elijah  kept  on  praying,  and  after  he  had 
prayed  seven  times  the  servant  came  and 
told  him  that  there  was  a  cloud  coming  up, 
and  very  soon  the  rain  began  to  fall. 

That  prayer  of  Elijah's  had  done  more 
than  all  the  power  of  the  king  could  do.  It 
had  brought  the  rain.     This  is  a  key  that 


20  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

every  boy  and  girl  can  have  and  use  if  they 
will. 

I  know  a  man  who  came  home  late  one 
night,  and  when  he  tried  to  open  the  door 
he  found  that  he  had  lost  the  key.  He  tried 
to  get  into  the  house,  but  everything  was 
fastened  tight  and  he  had  to  go  back  to  the 
hotel  for  the  night. 

There  are  many  people  who  cannot  get 
into  the  treasure  house  of  God's  heart. 
They  have  lost  the  key.  They  have  for- 
gotten to  pray.  Whatever  you  do  be  sure 
not  to  lose  the  key. 


IV 


Prayers  That  God  Does  Not  Answer 

<*  Ye  ask  and  receive  not,  because  ye  ask  amiss." 
— James  iv.  3. 

God  does  not  always  give  us  what  we  ask 
in  our  prayers.  If  He  did,  it  would  not  be 
well  for  us. 

There  was  a  young  man  in  prison  in  New 
York  a  year  or  two  ago  for  committing  a 
great  crime.  I  met  an  old  man  who  had 
known  that  young  man  all  his  life.  He  said, 
"The  trouble  with  that  boy  was  that  his 
father  spoiled  him.  He  gave  him  every- 
thing that  he  wanted.  If  the  father  had 
been  a  little  wiser,  the  boy  would  not  have 
been  ruined." 

Your  fathers  and  mothers  do  not  give  you 
everything  that  you  ask  for.  If  they  did,  it 
would  be  a  bad  thing  for  you.  And  God 
deals  in  the  same  way  with  us.  If  He  were 
to  grant  us  everything  that  we  ask,  it  would 
harm  instead  of  help  us. 

Very  often  we  ask  Him  to  do  something 
for  us  that  we  ought  to  do  for  ourselves. 
21 


22  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

When  I  was  in  school  once  in  a  while  one  of 
the  boys  would  come  to  a  problem  that  was 
very  hard.  After  looking  at  it  for  a  moment 
he  would  take  it  to  his  teacher  and  ask  him 
to  work  it  for  him.  The  teacher  would  say 
to  him,  **  Now,  my  boy,  it  is  not  going  to  do 
you  any  good  if  1  work  this  problem.  You 
go  back  and  see  if  you  can  solve  it  yourself." 

That  boy  had  been  sent  to  school  that  his 
mind  might  grow  strong  by  working  hard 
problems  and  doing  hard  things.  So  his 
teacher  did  not  do  what  he  asked,  but  made 
him  work  it  for  himself.  He  wanted  his 
teacher  to  do  something  for  him  that  he 
ought  to  have  done  for  himself. 

If  you  ever  pray  to  God  asking  Him  to  do 
something  for  you  and  He  does  not  do  it, 
ask  yourself  if  it  is  not  a  problem  that  He 
wants  you  to  work  for  yourself.  We  ought 
never  to  trouble  God  with  things  that  we  can 
do  for  ourselves. 

Then  sometimes  boys  and  girls  pray  for 
clear  weather.  They  are  going  on  an  excur- 
sion, perhaps,  the  next  day,  and  they  are 
afraid  that  it  will  rain,  so  they  ask  God  to 
give  them  a  clear,  bright  day.  The  next 
morning  when  they  wake  up  the  first  sound 
that  they  hear  is  the  rain  coming  down  on 
the  roof.     They  are  disappointed,  and  they 


Prayers  that  God  Does  Not  Answer    23 

think  that  God  has  not  heard  their  prayer. 
But  God  has  a  very  large  family  to  take  care 
of,  and  He  has  to  think  about  all  His  people. 
Out  in  the  country  there  are  thousands  of 
farmers  who  have  planted  their  fields  and 
they  are  praying  for  rain  to  come  and  make 
the  crops  grow.  If  God  were  to  answer  your 
prayer  and  send  sunshine  every  day  there 
would  be  no  rain  and  the  farmers  would  have 
no  fruit  or  grain,  and  there  would  be  noth- 
ing to  eat.  God  has  to  think  of  all  His  chil- 
dren, and  if  He  sends  you  rain  when  you  ask 
for  sunshine,  just  think  of  all  the  blessings 
that  the  rain  brings  to  the  earth,  the  grain, 
and  the  fruit  and  the  flowers. 

'  I  read  once  of  a  fairy  who  was  asked  by 
the  people  to  pray  to  God  for  rain.  Before 
she  prayed,  she  thought  she  would  find  out 
what  day  would  be  the  most  convenient  for 
the  people  to  have  it  rain.  Well,  the  women 
did  not  want  it  to  rain  on  Monday,  for  that 
was  wash-day,  and  Tuesday  the  market  peo- 
ple wanted  clear  weather.  Wednesday  the 
farmers  were  going  to  cut  their  hay  and 
Thursday  they  were  planning  to  gather  it  in  ; 
Friday  and  Saturday  it  was  something  else, 
and  of  course  the  ministers  did  not>  want  it  to 
rain  Sunday.  There  was  no  day  that  suited 
every  one.     So  the  fairy  went  and  asked  the 


24  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Lord  to  send  the  rain  whenever  He  thought 
best,  and  that  is  the  way  He  sends  it. 

Sometimes  we  are  very  selfish  in  our 
prayers.  There  was  a  boy  who  wanted  a 
quarter  very  much  to  buy  something  that  he 
needed,  and  he  had  no  way  of  getting  it,  so  he 
prayed  that  he  might  find  a  quarter.  That 
seems  like  a  harmless  prayer,  but  it  isn't  so 
harmless  as  we  think.  If  he  were  to  find  a 
quarter  some  one  else  would  have  first  to 
lose  it. 

He  was  asking  God  to  take  the  money  out 
of  the  pocket  of  some  one  else,  and  put  it  into 
his.  We  must  be  sure  that  our  prayers,  if 
they  were  granted,  do  not  make  some  one 
else  suffer.  If  they  do,  God  may  not  answer 
them. 

We  will  all  pray  many  times  when  God 
does  not  answer,  and  the  reason  is  not  that 
He  does  not  hear  us,  but  that  we  are  asking 
for  something  that  is  not  right,  or  is  not  best. 


Love 

"  We  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us." 
—  I  John  iv.  19. 

If  I  were  to  ask  one  of  you  why  it  is  that 
you  love  your  father  and  mother,  you 
wouldn't  be  able  to  tell  me  at  first.  There 
are  so  very  many  reasons  why  you  love 
them  that  it  is  hard  to  talk  about  it.  The 
greatest  reason  why  you  love  them  is  be- 
cause they  first  loved  you.  When  you  were 
very  small  and  couldn't  care  for  yourself, 
they  loved  you  and  did  everything  for  you. 
They  watched  around  you  by  day  and  by 
night,  and  gave  you  the  good  things  that 
you  needed,  and  taught  you  to  do  right.  So 
you  love  them  because  they  first  loved  you. 

That  is  the  reason  we  love  Jesus  Christ. 
Because  He  first  loved  us.  He  gave  us  not 
only  every  good  thing  that  we  have  but  also 
He  gave  Himself  for  us. 

In  the  city  of  Lynchburg  there  is  an  Or- 
phans' Home,  and  there  was  a  boy  there  a 
few  years  ago  about  whom  I  am  going  to 

25 


26  The  So  il  of  a  Child 

tell  you.     This  boy  has  only  one  leg,  and  he 
is  one  of  the  finest  little  heroes  I  ever  knew. 

Some  years  ago  they  had  a  fire  in  the 
Orphanage  and  its  buildings  were  all  burned. 
This  one-legged  boy  was  then  about  four- 
teen years  old.  In  the  second  story  of  one 
of  the  buildings  there  were  some  little  girls 
when  the  fire  started.  In  the  confusion  of 
trying  to  save  the  other  children  these  little 
ones  were  forgotten.  It  was  not  long  before 
the  entire  building  was  in  flames.  Then  this 
little  lame  boy  remembered  them.  He  made 
up  his  mind  that  he  would  save  them  if  he 
could.  He  found  an  old  ladder  and,  after  a 
hard  struggle,  set  it  up  against  the  building, 
and  dragged  himself  up  on  the  roof  of  the 
porch.  He  broke  a  window  and  went  in 
and  carried  out,  one  by  one,  five  little  girls. 
He  put  them  out  on  the  roof  and  told  them 
to  stand  there  till  he  could  get  down  the 
ladder.  ^One  of  them  went  back  into  the 
building  and  they  never  saw  her  again. 
The  boy  slid  down  the  ladder  and  stood  on 
a  litde  pile  of  rocks  at  the  bottom,  and  told 
them  to  jump,  one  at  a  time,  and  he  would 
catch  them.  Then  he  braced  himself  the 
best  he  could.  You  know  it  is  easy  to  plant 
your  feet  and  brace  yourself  when  you  have 
two  legs  to  stand  on.     But  this  little  fellow 


Love  27 

had  but  one,  and  when  those  children  jumped, 
he  broke  their  fall ;  but  each  time  a  child 
dropped  down  into  his  arms  he  was  knocked 
down  flat  on  the  rocks,  and  when  the  last  one 
had  jumped,  the  back  of  his  head  was  bat- 
tered and  bleeding,  where  he  had  fallen  on 
the  sharp  stones.  When  they  found  him  he 
was  unconscious,  but  he  had  saved  the  little 
girls. 

Don't  you  think  that  those  children,  as 
they  grow  older,  must  love  the  memory  of 
that  one-legged  boy?  They  love  him  be- 
cause he  first  loved  them  and  was  willing  to 
risk  his  life  for  them. 

That  is  what  Jesus  did.  He  loved  us  and 
gave  Himself  for  us.  Satan  came  to  destroy 
us,  as  the  wolf  comes  to  destroy  the  sheep. 
Jesus  was  the  good  shepherd  and  came  to 
fight  against  Satan,  and  save  us.  But  He 
lost  His  life.  That  is  why  we  love  Him,  He 
loved  us  and  gave  Himself  for  us. 


VI 

Sand 

**  As  the  sand  which  is  on  the  seashore.** 
— Genesis  xxii.  17. 

In  "  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  we  are  told 
about  the  Hill  Difficulty.  It  was  a  high,  hard 
hill  which  every  one  had  to  climb,  if  he  would 
make  the  most  of  his  life.  Of  course  there 
are  some  people  who  do  not  care  whether 
they  ever  do  any  better  or  are  any  better. 
They  are  satisfied  to  stay  at  the  bottom  all 
their  lives,  but  for  the  boy  or  girl  who  is 
seeking  the  best  things,  life  is  like  the  climb- 
ing of  a  hill  that  is  steep  and  rough. 

There  are  two  things  that  we  all  need  if 
we  are  ever  to  reach  the  top.  One  is  sand. 
When  you  hear  some  one  say  that  a  certain 
boy  has  plenty  of  "sand,"  you  know  what 
he  means,  but  perhaps  you  do  not  know  just 
where  that  expression  came  from. 

One  of  the  greatest  powers  of  which  we 
know  is  that  of  the  waves  along  the  sea- 
shore. Half-way  between  Cape  Henry  and 
Virginia  Beach  there  lies  the  wreck  of  a 
28 


Sand  29 

great  ship,  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long. 
It  was  lifted  by  the  waves  and  thrown 
high  up  on  the  beach.  There  is  almost 
nothing  that  can  stand  before  the  power  of 
the  waves.  If  they  make  a  bulkhead  of  piles 
or  stone  or  concrete,  it  will  last  a  few  years 
and  will  then  be  undermined  and  washed 
away.  Men  have  never  found  anything  that 
can  long  hold  the  waves  back.  But  God 
has  made  a  bulkhead  that  the  sea  cannot 
pass.  It  is  the  sand.  The  sand  can  stand 
against  the  waveSc  and  it  is  the  only  thing 
we  know  that  can. 

Sand  in  a  boy  or  girl  is  the  courage  and 
power  to  stand  up  before  things  that  are 
hard.  It  is  the  ability  to  say  '*no"  when 
temptation  comes  along,  and  to  mean  it.  It 
is  the  power  to  take  some  hard  work  and 
stick  to  it  and  hold  on  till  it  is  finished. 

You  see  some  day  a  street-car  starting  up 
a  long  grade.  Before  the  car  begins  to  climb, 
the  conductor  takes  a  look  at  the  sand  box. 
He  will  not  start  up  the  hill  unless  there  is 
plenty  of  sand  in  that  box.  Without  sand  the 
car  will  slip  back  before  it  reaches  the  top. 

Some  boys  never  can  play  football.  They 
have  the  weight,  and  the  strength,  and  the 
speed,  but  they  haven't  the  sand.  And  there 
are  some  people  who  never  get  anywhere  in 


30  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

life.  They  have  good  bodies  and  plenty  of 
brains  and  opportunity.  But  they  lack  sand. 
Now  you  are  all  starting  out  to  climb  the 
hill  of  life  before  you.  Never  forget  that  you 
must  have  sand. 

And  there  is  something  else  that  we  need. 
Oftentimes  we  need  help.  We  cannot  do 
our  work  alone. 

There  was  a  little  boy  who  was  trying  to 
lift  a  heavy  stone.  He  could  not  budge  it. 
Just  then  his  father  came  along  and  watched 
him.  At  last  he  said  to  the  boy,  "  Are  you 
using  all  your  strength  ?  "  "  Yes/'  answered 
the  boy,  **  I  am  using  all  of  it."  "  No,"  said 
his  father,  "you  are  not  using  all  of  it."  So 
the  little  fellow  tried  again,  this  time  harder 
than  ever,  and  he  moved  the  stone  a  little, 
but  still  he  could  not  lift  it.  His  father  said 
again  to  him,  ''  You  are  not  using  all  of  your 
strength."  The  boy  said,  "Yes,  I  am.  Fa- 
ther." "  No,"  said  the  father,  "  you  haven't 
asked  me  to  help  yet."  The  boy  had  forgot- 
ten that  his  father's  strength  was  his  strength 
too,  and  that  he  could  ask  for  it,  and  have  it 
if  he  needed  it.  In  the  same  way  let  us  re- 
member that  God's  strength  is  our  strength, 
and  that  we  can  have  that  strength  to  help 
us  if  we  need  it„ 


VII 

Owning  Up 

*'  Confess  your  faults  one  to  another." — ^James  v.  1 6. 

'  One  of  the  most  beautiful  stories  that  was 
ever  told  is  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 
You  all  know  the  story.  There  was  a  young 
man  who  went  away  from  home  and  did 
wrong.  After  a  while  he  was  sorry  and 
came  back  and  said  to  his  father,  **  Father,  I 
have  sinned  against  heaven  and  in  thy 
sight  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
thy  son."  That  little  speech  that  he  made 
to  his  father  was  about  the  hardest  thing  he 
was  called  upon  to  do.  Nobody  likes  to  own 
up  when  he  has  done  wrong. 

Professor  Blackie,  of  Edinburgh,  once  called 
on  a  boy  in  the  freshman  class  to  stand  up 
and  read  in  the  schoolroom.  The  boy  stood 
up,  holding  his  book  in  his  left  hand.  He 
told  him  to  put  the  book  in  his  right  hand. 
The  boy  still  held  it  in  his  left  hand  and  Pro- 
fessor Blackie  became  angry  and  commanded 
him  harshly  to  lay  the  book  down  and  take 
it  in  the  other  hand.  Just  then  the  boy 
31 


32  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

turned  around  and  he  saw  that  there  was 
nothing  but  an  empty  sleeve  on  the  right 
side.  Dr.  Blackie  came  down  from  the  desk 
and  going  over  to  the  boy  he  put  his  arm 
around  him  and  said,  "  I  am  very  sorry,  my 
boy.  I  didn't  know.*'  And  then  he  went 
back  to  his  place  and  apologized  to  the  class 
for  his  mistake.  That  was  one  thing  about 
this  great  man  that  made  the  boys  all  love 
him.  He  was  always  ready  to  own  up  when 
he  had  made  a  blunder. 

Our  text  tells  us  to  confess  our  faults  one 
to  another.  If  you  have  done  wrong  to  some 
one  else,  to  your  father,  or  mother,  or  brother, 
or  sister,  or  one  of  your  friends,  be  manly  or 
womanly  enough  to  go  and  own  up.  That 
is  the  best  and  quickest  way  to  make  it  right. 

I  know  a  boy  who  lost  his  mother.  After 
her  death  he  was  very  sad.  He  said,  "  I  did 
many  things  that  I  ought  not  to  have  done, 
and  I  always  thought  that  some  day  I  would 
go  and  tell  mother  that  I  was  sorry,  and  now 
she  is  gone  and  I  cannot." 

Most  of  the  quarrels  and  troubles  that  sepa- 
rate people  are  brought  about  because  there 
is  some  one  who  will  not  own  up,  when  he 
knows  that  he  is  in  the  wrong. 

There  was  a  man  who  accused  his  neigh- 
bor of  taking  something  that  belonged  to 


Owning  Up  33 

him.  They  had  a  bitter  quarrel  and  a  law- 
suit and  plenty  of  trouble  all  around.  One 
day  while  looking  over  some  papers  in  his 
desk  he  found  the  one  he  had  thought  was 
stolen.  His  neighbor  had  not  robbed  him. 
It  was  all  a  mistake.  He  ought  to  have  gone 
at  once  and  confessed,  but  he  was  too  proud 
to  own  up  like  a  man  and  the  quarrel  went 
on  for  years. 

*  The  bravest  boys  and  girls  are  those  who 
are  not  afraid  to  own  up  even  when  they 
know  that  they  will  have  to  suffer  for  it. 
Some  one  told  me  of  a  boy  who  had  cheated 
in  an  examination.  He  handed  in  an  almost 
perfect  paper,  and  on  commencement  day 
was  called  up  to  receive  the  prize.  He 
stepped  up  and  said,  **  Sir,  I  didn't  earn  it. 
I  cheated.  The  prize  belongs  to  some  one 
else."  That  boy  did  wrong  to  cheat,  but 
he  was  a  brave  boy  to  own  up  and  take  the 
punishment.  That  confession  was  worth 
more  to  him  than  the  prize  that  he  lost. 

Boys  and  girls,  do  not  be  afraid  or 
ashamed  to  own  up  when  you  have  done  a 
wrong  or  dishonorable  act.  That  is  the  first 
thing  to  make  it  right  and  to  make  your- 
selves right.  "Confess  your  faults  one  to 
another." 


VIII 
Why  God  Doesn't  Kill  Satan 

"Satan  went   forth  from  the   presence  of  the   Lord." 
— Job  i.  1 2. 

While  the  children  of  Israel  were  on  the 
way  from  Egypt  to  the  land  of  Canaan  they 
came  one  day  to  a  valley,  where  there  were  a 
great  many  poisonous  snakes.  Many  of  the 
people  were  bitten  and  died. 

If  one  of  the  boys  was  out  playing,  all  at 
once  he  felt  a  sharp  pain  in  his  ankle.  Then 
it  began  to  swell  and  before  long  he  was 
dead.  If  one  of  the  girls  went  to  the  spring 
to  get  some  water  for  her  mother,  when  she 
stooped  over  to  dip  up  the  water  she  felt  a 
prick  in  her  wrist,  and  saw  a  snake  wriggling 
away  in  the  grass,  and  knew  then  that  she 
did  not  have  very  long  to  live.  If  one  of  the 
men  went  out  to  get  some  wood  for  the  fire, 
the  first  thing  he  knew  he  would  be  bitten. 
These  things  were  happening  all  the  time, 
and  there  was  no  cure  for  the  bite  of  these 
serpents.  So  the  people  went  to  Moses  and 
asked  him  to  do  something,  and  Moses  prayed 
to  the  Lord. 

34 


Why  God  Doesn't  Kill  Satan         35 

God  told  Moses  to  make  a  serpent  of  brass 
and  fasten  it  to  the  top  of  a  long  pole  and 
set  the  pole  up  in  the  middle  of  the  camp 
where  every  one  could  see  it.  If  any  one 
was  bitten  by  a  snake  he  was  to  look  at  that 
serpent  on  the  pole,  and  he  would  not  die. 

That  seems  like  a  strange  thing  for  God  to 
do,  now  doesn't  it?  Why  didn't  God  just 
kill  the  snakes  and  be  done  with  them  ?  It 
seems  as  though  that  would  have  been  the 
very  best  way  to  save  the  people.  But  no, 
God  left  those  serpents  there  to  teach  the 
people  several  things.  First  He  wanted 
them  to  be  watchful.  If  you  have  ever  been 
out  in  the  woods  where  you  are  afraid  of 
snakes,  you  know  how  very  carefully  you 
walk.  You  never  put  your  foot  down  unless 
you  know  where  you  are  putting  it.  Those 
snakes  made  you  watchful. 

And  He  wanted  to  teach  them  to  look  up. 
That  is  why  He  put  that  serpent  on  the  pole, 
that  the  people  might  not  forget  to  look  up  to 
Him  when  they  were  in  need  or  trouble. 

But  now  you  say  to  me,  "  What  has  all 
this  to  do  with  Satan  ?  "  It  has  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  him.  Satan  is  said  to  be  a  ser- 
pent, and  when  we  are  thinking  of  him  we 
are  thinking  of  a  serpent. 

Sometimes    we    ask    this  same  question 


36  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

about  him,  **  Why  does  God  let  Satan  live  ?  " 
A  boy  said  to  me  once,  "  Why  doesn^t  God 
just  kill  old  Satan  and  be  done  with  him  ? 
What  good  is  he  anyway  ?  '* 

Well,  God  lets  Satan  live  for  the  same 
reason  that  He  let  those  serpents  live,  that 
were  biting  and  troubling  the  children  of 
Israel  in  the  wilderness. 

He  wants  to  teach  us  to  be  watchful,  to  be 
careful  of  every  step  that  we  take  and  every 
word  we  speak,  and  every  thought  that  we 
think.  When  people  believe  that  Satan  isn't 
around  anywhere  they  become  careless.  God 
lets  him  live  to  make  us  better  and  stronger 
boys  and  girls  and  men  and  women. 

And  He  lets  him  live  that  we  may  look  up 
to  Him  when  we  are  in  trouble.  You  know 
when  people  have  no  troubles  they  are  very 
likely  to  forget  about  God.  But  when  they 
are  tempted  and  troubled  then  they  think 
about  Him  and  pray  to  Him.  And  God 
wants  us  to  come  to  Him. 

God  is  going  to  attend  to  Satan  some  time, 
but  I  am  glad  that  He  didn't  do  it  before. 
He  makes  us  plenty  of  trouble,  but  if  we  re- 
sist him  he  makes  us  stronger  and  better 
Christians. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  Frenchman  who  was 
shut  up  in  the  great  prison  of  the  Bastile 


Why  God  Doesn't  Kill  Satan         37 

many  years  ago.  They  put  him  into  a  lonely 
dungeon  into  which  the  light  came  just  a 
little  while  each  day  through  a  tiny  window 
high  up  in  the  wall.  He  never  saw  any  one, 
or  heard  a  voice,  and  became  very  sad  and 
depressed,  with  nothing  to  think  about  or  to 
do.  One  day  he  saw  a  little  plant  beginning 
to  sprout  up  between  the  stones  of  the  cell. 
He  watched  that  plant.  There  was  nothing 
else  for  him  to  think  about.  As  it  grew  day 
after  day  he  learned  to  love  it  very  much. 
He  did  not  know  what  kind  of  a  plant  it  was, 
whether  it  was  a  weed  or  a  flower.  He  said 
to  himself,  **  I  am  going  to  watch  that  plant, 
and  if  it  turns  out  to  be  an  ugly  weed  then  I 
will  know  that  I  am  never  going  to  get  out 
of  this  prison  alive.  But  if  it  is  a  lovely 
flower  I  will  know  that  I  am  going  to  be  re- 
leased." 

One  night  he  lay  down  to  sleep  and  when 
he  awoke  in  the  morning  there  was  a  delicate 
fragrance  in  the  cell.  He  jumped  up  from 
the  straw  on  which  he  was  lying,  and  went 
and  looked,  and  there  was  a  lovely  little 
flower  on  the  plant.  When  he  saw  it  he 
called  it  '*  mignonette,"  which  means  "  lit- 
tle darling."  Sure  enough,  a  little  while 
after  they  came  and  released  him  and  he 
went  away  to  his  home  again.     And  people 


38  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

who  did  not  know  about  him  used  to  wonder 
why  he  had  the  mignonette  so  much  on  the 
table  in  his  home. 

Now  God  is  watching  every  one  of  us  to 
see  just  how  we  are  enduring  the  temptations 
of  Satan,  whether  we  are  going  to  turn  out 
just  weeds,  or  beautiful  flowers  that  will  bless 
and  help  the  world. 


IX 

Kindness  to  Dumb  Animals 

"  And  God  saw  everything  that  He  had  made,  and,  be- 
hold, it  was  very  good." — Genesis  i.  31. 

About  a  hundred  years  ago  there  was  an 
English  poet  who  wrote  a  little  poem  that  we 
all  ought  to  know  : 

''  He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast; 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small, 

For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 


God  made  the  animals  and  the  birds,  and 
He  loves  them  because  He  has  made  them 
and  He  wants  us  to  love  them,  too.  We 
ought  to  love  them  for  what  they  do  for  us. 
They  serve  us  in  more  ways  than  I  have 
time  to  tell  you  about.  Think  of  the  cow 
and  the  horse.  The  cow  gives  us  milk  and 
butter  and  cheese  and  meat,  and  leather  for 
our  shoes,  and  many  other  useful  and  neces- 
sary things.  The  horse  does  much  of  our 
hard  work  for  us.  We  cannot  pay  them  in 
39 


40  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

money,  but  we  can  repay  them  in  kindness. 
If  you  see  a  man  who  is  not  kind  to  his 
faithful  horse,  you  may  be  sure  he  is  a  man 
whom  you  could  not  trust  very  far. 

In  India  the  elephants  do  a  great  many 
things  that  horses  do  for  us,  and  they  do 
some  things  that  horses  can't  do.  The 
Indian  mothers  sometimes  leave  their  babies 
in  charge  of  an  elephant,  and  the  big  fellow 
takes  almost  as  good  care  of  them  as  if  they 
were  his  own.  One  of  the  missionaries  was 
telling  of  seeing  a  big  elephant  set  to  brush 
the  flies  off  a  sleeping  child,  with  a  little 
branch  of  a  tree  that  he  held  in  his  trunk. 
All  the  time  the  big  flies  and  insects  were 
biting  and  stinging  the  elephant,  but  he  for- 
got all  about  them  taking  care  of  the  baby. 

'  Then  we  ought  to  love  the  animals  because 
they  love  us.  When  I  was  in  Holland  I 
went  to  the  city  where  the  great  Prince  of 
Orange,  William  the  Silent,  is  buried.  There 
is  a  fine  marble  statue  there  of  the  prince, 
and  at  his  feet  there  is  a  little  dog  with  his 
head  between  his  paws,  carved  out  of  marble. 
Later  on  we  went  to  The  Hague,  the  capital 
of  Holland.  There  is  another  statue  of  the 
prince,  and  the  dog  is  there  too.  I  asked 
some  one  about  the  dog  and  he  told  me  that 
hundreds  of  years  ago  when  the  prince  lived 


Kindness  to  Dumb  Animals  41 

there  was  a  little  dog  that  loved  him  very 
much.  He  went  everywhere  the  prince  went, 
and  when  William  was  murdered  the  little 
dog  refused  to  eat  and  starved  himself  to 
death  with  grief.  So  whenever  the  people 
of  Holland  build  a  monument  to  their  great 
hero  they  remember  the  little  dog,  too. 

If  the  animals  do  not  love  us  it  is  because 
we  are  not  kind  to  them.  They  always  love 
us  if  we  love  them. 

And  the  birds,  too,  how  tame  they  become 
if  we  are  good  to  them  !  Jesus  once  said  that 
not  a  sparrow  ever  falls  to  the  ground  with- 
out the  Father.  That  is,  God  knows  and 
cares  for  every  one  of  the  birds.  When  we 
see  boys  and  men  killing  the  little  birds  just 
for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  them  fall  out  of  the 
trees,  it  would  be  a  good  thing,  wouldn't  it, 
if  they  could  know  that  God  sees  every  one 
of  those  birds  fall,  and  knows  who  made  it 
fall,  too? 

The  Jews  have  a  lovely  little  legend.  They 
say  that  when  Moses  was  keeping  the  sheep 
of  Jethro,  his  father-in-law,  a  lamb  ran  away 
and  was  lost.  He  ran  after  it,  and  at  last  he 
caught  up  with  it.  It  was  panting  and  foot- 
sore, and  weary,  and  torn,  and  unable  to  go 
a  step  further.  Moses  said  to  the  lamb,  *'  Did 
you  think  that  I  wanted  to  hurt  you  that  you 


42  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

ran  away  from  me?  No,  it  was  love  that 
made  me  come  after  you,  and  in  love  I  am 
going  to  lay  you  on  my  shoulder  and  take 
you  back  home." 

When  God  saw  how  kind  Moses  was  to 
the  litde  lamb  He  said,  '*  There  is  the  very 
man  I  need  to  lead  My  people."  So  God 
made  Moses  the  leader  of  Israel. 

If  you  wish  to  please  God  and  form  a 
gentle  character  be  kind  to  the  birds  and  the 
animals. 


Forgetting  Ourselves 

**  Christ  pleased  not  Himself." — Romans  xv.  3. 

When  we  start  in  life  one  of  the  most 
important  things  to  learn  is  to  remember. 
We  must  try  very  hard  not  to  forget  the  in- 
struction of  our  parents,  and  the  teachings 
of  the  Bible  and  the  lessons  we  learn  at 
school.  All  these  things  we  must  remember, 
if  we  are  to  grow  up  wise  and  good.  But 
there  are  also  many  things  that  we  must 
learn  to  forget.  We  must  try  to  forget  the 
wicked  stories  that  we  hear,  and  the  evil 
pictures  that  we  see,  and  all  the  mean  and 
unkind  things  that  we  find  out  about  other 
people.  And  there  is  something  else  that 
we  must  try  to  forget  and  that  is — ourselves. 

When  Jesus  was  nailed  to  the  cross,  suffer- 
ing such  awful  agony,  He  did  not  think  of 
Himself  at  all.  It  was  only  of  the  poor  men 
who  had  fastened  Him  to  the  cross,  and  He 
prayed,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do." 

There  is  a  very  good  woman  not  very  far 
43 


44  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

from  us.  I  heard  some  one  say  about  her 
one  day,  *'  She  is  the  very  best  woman  who 
ever  lived."  And  then  he  went  on  to  tell 
me  why  he  thought  so :  "  She  never  thinks 
about  herself.  It  is  always  about  others." 
What  a  fine  thing  to  be  said  of  any  one  I 
If  you  want  to  be  happy,  and  if  you  want  to 
be  loved  by  others,  forget  yourself,  and  you 
will  be  both. 

This  week  I  read  the  story  of  an  old  man 
in  Japan.  There  was  a  little  village  at  the 
foot  of  a  high  hill  along  the  seashore,  and  up 
on  that  hill,  high  above  the  shore,  the  old 
man  lived  with  his  little  grandson,  who  was 
ten  years  old.  He  had  worked  hard  all  his 
life  and  owned  the  little  house  where  they 
lived. 

One  evening  in  June,  1896,  he  was  standing 
in  the  doorway  of  his  house  with  his  grandson 
beside  him.  The  day's  work  was  done  and 
they  were  looking  out  to  sea,  when  all  at 
once  there  came  a  great  earthquake,  such  as 
they  very  often  have  in  Japan.  The  house 
swayed  and  shook,  but  it  didn't  fall  down, 
for  they  make  their  houses  in  Japan  so  they 
will  stand  up  when  earthquakes  come.  But 
the  old  man  saw  that  the  sea  was  running 
out,  miles  away  from  the  shore.  Long  before 
when  he  was  a  young  man  he  had  seen  the 


Forgetting  Ourselves  45 

sea  do  that  after  an  earthquake,  and  he  knew 
just  what  was  going  to  happen.  The  people 
in  the  village  had  seen  the  strange  sight  and 
ran  down  to  the  beach  to  look  at  it.  The  old 
man  knew  what  they  didn't  know,  that  in  a 
little  while  that  sea  would  come  rolling  in,  as 
a  great  tidal  wave  and  destroy  the  whole  vil- 
lage. So  he  called  his  grandson  and  told  him 
to  bring  him  a  lighted  torch.  He  took  the 
torch  and  set  fire  to  the  thatch  on  the  roof  of 
his  house.  The  little  boy  began  to  cry.  He 
thought  the  earthquake  had  made  his  grand- 
father crazy.  Down  in  the  village  the  people 
saw  the  blaze  and  they  came  running  up  the 
hill.  The  fire  bell  began  to  ring  and  the 
people  who  were  on  the  seashore  ran  back, 
too.  Some  young  men  were  the  first  to  reach 
the  fire  and  they  tried  to  put  it  out,  but  the  old 
man  would  not  let  them.  **  Let  it  burn,"  he 
said.  **  I  want  the  whole  village  here." 
The  men  thought  it  was  very  strange  and 
asked  the  grandson  about  it.  He  said, 
"  Grandfather  is  growing  mad.  I  saw  him 
set  the  house  on  fire  on  purpose."  **  Yes," 
said  the  grandfather,  "  I  did  set  it  on  fire. 
Are  the  people  of  the  village  all  here  ?  "  They 
looked  and  told  him  that  they  were  all  there. 
"  Now,"  said  he,  "  look  at  the  sea."  They 
looked,  and  they  saw  the  water^  like  a  great 


46  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

cliff,  rolling  in  toward  the  land.  On  and 
on  it  came  and  swept  over  the  village,  and 
almost  came  up  to  where  they  were,  and 
when  the  water  went  back  there  was  not  a 
sign  of  the  village  left.  It  was  all  gone. 
Then  they  knew  why  the  old  man  had  set 
fire  to  his  house  and  burned  up  everything 
that  he  had.  It  was  to  save  them.  He  never 
thought  of  himself  and  his  hard  work  all  his 
life  to  earn  enough  to  own  that  house.  He 
only  thought  of  them. 

That  is  what  Jesus  wants  us  to  do,  forget 
ourselves  and  think  of  others. 


XI 

Rocks  and  Shoals 

"  The  wicked  have  laid  a  snare  for  me  :  yet  I  erred  not 
from  thy  precepts." — Psalm  cxix.  i  lo. 

Every  ship  that  sails  on  the  ocean  has  in 
the  captain's  room  a  chart.  You  have  all 
seen  maps  of  this  state,  and  you  know  by 
looking  at  the  map  where  every  city  and 
river  and  mountain  is.  A  chart  is  a  map  of 
the  ocean.  There  are  dangers  down  under- 
neath the  smooth  waters  which  the  captain's 
eye  cannot  see.  They  are  all  marked  care- 
fully on  the  chart,  and  if  he  sails  the  ship  by 
the  chart  he  will  escape  them. 

Sometimes  just  a  little  below  the  water  are 
great  sharp  rocks,  and  if  the  captain  were  to 
forget  to  look  at  that  map  of  the  sea  he 
would  run  into  one  of  those  hidden  rocks  and 
the  ship  would  sink. 

There  are  shoals  also  for  which  he  must  be 
on  the  lookout.  A  shoal  is  a  very  shallow 
place  in  the  sea.  If  the  ship  runs  on  a  shoal 
it  sticks  fast,  and  has  a  hard  time  to  get  ofif, 
and  sometimes  is  broken  to  pieces  by  the 
waves  before  they  can  save  it. 
47 


48  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

On  the  captain's  chart  every  lighthouse 
and  light-ship  and  buoy,  and  every  rock  and 
shoal  is  carefully  marked,  for  the  safety  of  the 
people  who  travel  on  the  ships. 

Life  is  very  much  like  a  ship,  sailing  out 
to  sea.  We  need  a  chart  to  point  out  the 
safe  places  and  to  show  us  how  to  avoid  the 
dangers.  God  has  given  us  a  book  to  be  our 
chart.     It  is  the  Bible. 

Let  me  tell  you  some  of  the  people  whom 
you  know  who  ran  on  the  rocks  because  they 
did  not  watch  the  chart  carefully  enough. 
The  first  boy  in  the  Bible  was  named  Cain. 
His  was  the  very  first  ship  that  ever  put  out 
to  sea  from  a  home  in  this  world.  But  do 
you  know  he  let  his  ship  run  into  a  rock 
called  "  bad  temper,"  and  before  he  knew  it 
he  had  killed  his  brother.  A  great  many 
good  ships  have  been  wrecked  on  that  rock. 
We  must  look  out  for  it  by  watching  the 
Bible  carefully. 

Another  was  Absalom.  He  was  King 
David's  favorite  son.  The  Bible  says, 
"  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother."  But 
Absalom  was  one  of  those  boys  who  knew 
more  than  anybody  else.  He  wasn't  going 
to  bother  about  that  old  chart.  He  knew 
where  to  go  himself.  And  one  day,  crash  I 
He  ran  into  the  rock  of  "  disobedience  "  and 


Rocks  and  Shoals  49 

• 
that  was   the   end  of  him.     It  would  never 
have  happened  if  he  had  watched  the  chart. 

Over  in  the  New  Testament  is  Ananias. 
He  was  a  business  man.  He  was  so  busy 
making  money  that  he  thought  that  he  didn't 
have  time  to  look  at  the  chart  to  see  where 
he  was  going,  and  all  at  once  he  ran  into 
that  rock  called  "  Ue,"  and  he  went  down  and 
was  never  seen  again. 

But  rocks  are  not  the  only  dangers  we 
have  to  look  out  for.  There  are  the  shoals. 
One  of  the  very  worst  shoals  is  laziness.  I 
knew  a  man  who  had  plenty  of  ability  and  a 
fine  education.  He  might  have  been  a  great 
man.  He  started  out  well,  but  he  never 
went  far.  One  day  he  just  stopped  working 
and  there  he  stayed  the  rest  of  his  life.  Do 
you  know  what  was  the  trouble  ?  He  ran  on 
the  shoal  of  laziness,  and  there  he  stuck  fast. 
If  he  had  read  the  book  of  Proverbs,  he 
would  have  known  enough  to  have  steered 
away  from  that  dangerous  shallow  place. 

There  is  one  more  dangerous  shoal  that  I 
must  tell  you  about.  Once  there  was  a  man 
named  Demas.  He  thought  it  would  be  a 
great  thing  to  be  a  missionary  like  Paul  and 
love  and  help  other  people.  He  started  out 
like  a  fine  ship  going  on  a  long,  happy  voy- 
age.    Then  he  began  to  think  how  much  it 


so  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

was  going  to  cost  him ;  all  the  good  things 
he  would  have  to  give  up,  and  the  pleasure 
he  would  miss  if  he  went  with  Paul.  So  he 
stopped  and  did  not  go.  He  stuck  fast  on 
the  shoal  of  selfishness.  We  must  be  careful 
and  not  be  caught  on  this  shoal. 

Often  a  ship  is  in  danger.  There  is  fog  on 
the  ocean,  or  it  is  near  rocks  or  shoals.  At 
such  a  time  the  captain  never  leaves  the 
pilot-house  for  a  second.  He  keeps  his  eye 
on  the  chart  and  the  compass  every  moment. 
There  are  many  dangerous  rocks  and  shoals 
which  we  must  avoid.  If  we  will  keep  near 
to  the  Bible  and  follow  its  directions,  we  will 
not  fear  what  may  be  before  us. 


XII 


The  Building  of  a  Lighthouse 

"A  beacon  upon  the  top  of  a  mountain." 
— Isaiah  xxx.  17. 

Isaiah  is  talking  here  about  a  lighthouse. 
They  had  lighthouses,  or  something  very  like 
them,  in  the  time  of  the  prophet  twenty-five 
hundred  years  ago.  One  of  the  most  famous 
lighthouses  of  history  was  built  three  hun- 
dred years  before  Jesus  came  to  earth  at  the 
mouth  of  the  River  Nile,  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea.  The  historians  ought  to  know, 
and  they  tell  us  that  this  lighthouse  was  one 
of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  and  that 
it  cost  over  two  millions  of  dollars  to  build. 

in  these  days  we  have  a  great  many  light- 
houses along  the  coast.  They  are  put  there 
to  guide  the  ships  at  night.  We  have  two 
at  the  entrance  to  the  Virginia  capes.  You 
have  many  of  you  seen  the  one  at  Cape 
Henry.  There  are  really  two  there.  One 
was  erected  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  dur- 
ing the  presidency  of  General  Washington. 
After  it  had  been  used  for  over  a  century  it 
was  worn  out  and  the  government  built  a 
51 


52  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

new  one,  which  every  night  sends  its  great 
beam  of  light  far  out  over  the  waves. 

There  are  many  things  about  lighthouses 
that  remind  us  of  boys  and  girls. 

First,  the  foundation  must  be  very  strong. 
It  never  would  do  to  build  the  lighthouse  on 
the  sand.  The  first  storm  that  came  along 
would  wash  the  sand  out  from  beneath  it  and 
then  where  would  the  lighthouse  be  ?  It 
must  be  built  on  the  rock  or  on  strong  piles 
that  will  not  move. 

The  Eddystone  light,  on  the  coast  of  Eng- 
land, is  one  of  the  most  famous  in  the  world. 
They  built  three  lighthouses  and  they  were 
all  washed  away  by  the  storms.  And  then 
the  engineers  came  and  they  went  down 
below  the  sand  and  anchored  the  building  to 
the  solid  rock,  and  it  has  never  been  shaken. 

When  we  are  building  our  characters  it  is 
very  important  that  they  should  be  fastened 
to  the  rock.  We  must  be  careful  about  the 
foundation.  Paul  said,  "  Other  foundation 
can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  even  Jesus 
Christ"  He  is  the  best  foundation  that  any 
young  man  or  woman  can  have  for  character. 
If  the  life  is  built  on  Him  and  anchored  to 
Him  there  will  not  be  much  danger  of  the 
character  failing  when  the  times  of  storm 
and  trial  come. 


The  Building  of  a  Lighthouse         53 

Next  they  are  very  careful  about  the  kind 
of  material  they  put  into  the  lighthouses. 
The  big  tower  at  Cape  Henry  is  made  of 
steel,  and  every  piece  is  riveted  carefully  to 
the  piece  next  to  it.  The  whole  structure 
must  be  of  the  very  best  material.  If  there 
were  one  poor  piece  of  steel  in  it  the  whole 
building  might  fall  some  night  when  the 
wind  was  blowing  a  gale  along  the  coast. 

Every  day  we  are  busy  building  our  char- 
acters, and  sometimes  we  are  tempted  to  put 
in  bad  habits  and  easy,  lazy  ways.  If  we  do, 
the  character  we  are  erecting  will  never  stand 
the  tests  of  life  that  are  coming. 

But  there  is  something  else  that  is  even 
more  important.  What  is  the  lighthouse 
for  ?  It  is  there  to  give  light.  There  are 
ships  out  there  on  the  sea  every  night  in 
danger  of  running  on  the  rocks  or  the  shoals. 
The  light  is  there  to  show  them  how  to  avoid 
the  dangers. 

In  the  same  way  our  characters  are  being 
built,  not  for  our  own  glory  or  our  own  pleas- 
ure, but  to  give  light  to  the  people  that  are 
about  us.  We  are  to  live  so  that  they  will  want 
to  do  better  and  be  better.  If  we  are  selfish, 
and  do  not  let  the  light  of  life  shine,  they  may 
become  bewildered  and  lost,  like  the  ship 
along  a  coast  where  there  is  no  lighthouse. 


54  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

There  was  a  man  once  who  was  being 
taken  over  a  lighthouse  by  the  man  who 
kept  it.  While  they  were  looking  at  the 
light  the  man  said  to  the  keeper,  "  Suppose 
some  night  you  should  forget  to  light  it  ? " 
He  answered,  "Sir,  that  is  impossible.  I 
could  not  forget  it.  If  there  were  no  light  to- 
night, in  a  few  days  I  would  hear  from  the 
North  and  the  South  and  everywhere,  that 
there  were  ships  that  went  astray  to-night. 
I  dare  not  forget  it." 

So  we  must  not  forget  our  lights.  Jesus 
said,  "  Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men 
that  they  may  see  your  good  works  and 
glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 


XIII 

The  Wings  of  the  Sun 

"  Unto  you   that   fear  My  name  shall  the  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness arise  with  healing  in  His  wings." — 
Malachi  iv.  2. 

Have  you  ever  heard  about  the  wings  of 
the  sun  ?  You  know  about  the  wings  of  a 
bird,  and  the  wings  of  a  house,  and  the  wings 
of  an  army,  but  perhaps  you  do  not  know 
about  the  wings  of  the  sun.  If  you  will  look 
up  at  the  sun  you  will  see  bright  beams  of 
light  extending  out  from  the  side  of  the  sun, 
just  as  the  wings  of  a  house  extend  from  the 
side  of  the  house.  These  are  the  wings  of 
the  sun.  We  call  them  sunbeams.  The 
prophet  says  that  there  is  healing  in  the  sun- 
beams, just  as  there  is  in  the  medicine  that 
the  doctor  leaves  us  when  we  are  sick.  Peo- 
ple are  just  beginning  to  know  what  a  won- 
derful healer  the  sunshine  is  for  those  who 
are  ill. 

If  you  take  a  plant  and  put  it  down  in  the 
cellar  where  there  is  no  light  and  leave  it 
there  for  a  few  days,  that  plant  will  become 
55 


56  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

sick  and  die.  It  must  have  the  sunshine  ii 
it  is  to  live  and  grow,  and  it  is  the  same  way 
with  people. 

Most  of  the  hospitals  have  a  great  room 
where  the  sun  can  shine  all  day,  and  there 
the  people  are  taken  who  are  getting  well,  so 
that  the  sun  can  shine  on  them  and  help  them 
in  their  recovery. 

A  doctor  in  one  of  the  hospitals  said  not 
very  long  ago,  "  There  are  some  rooms  here 
where  people  seem  to  get  well  sooner  than  in 
others,  and  they  are  always  the  roo;ns  where 
the  sun  shines  the  most."  This  is  what  the 
prophet  meant  when  he  said  that  the  sun  has 
healing  in  its  wings. 

But  he  was  really  telling  us  about  Jesus. 
He  calls  Him  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  and 
says  that  there  is  healing  in  His  wings,  just 
as  there  is  in  the  great  sun  that  shines  up 
there  in  the  sky. 

There  are  some  sicknesses  that  only  Jesus 
can  heal.  You  know  there  are  diseases  of 
the  body,  and  there  are  diseases  of  the  mind, 
and  there  are  diseases  of  the  soul.  Sin  is  the 
great  sickness  of  the  soul.  We  are  all  troub- 
led with  this  disease,  and  there  is  no  cure  in 
the  world  for  it  but  Jesus,  the  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness. 

Suppose  one  of  you  were  sick,  and  were  to 


The  Wings  of  the  Sun  57 

go  to  your  doctor  and  he  were  to  say  to  you, 
"  What  you  want  is  sunlight.  Just  stay  out 
in  the  sun  and  air  all  that  you  can  and  you 
will  be  well."  Wouldn't  you  go  out  into  the 
sunlight  ?     Of  course  you  would. 

Now  God,  the  great  doctor  of  the  soul, 
comes  to  us  and  says,  **  Your  soul  is  sick.  It 
is  sin  that  ails  you.  What  you  need  is  the 
sunlight  of  Jesus.  If  you  will  come  into  that 
sunlight  you  will  be  well." 

There  was  once  a  man  named  Peter.  He 
was  a  rough,  cursing  fellow  who  had  not  led 
a  very  good  life. 

Doctors  tell  us  that  disease  germs  grow 
best  in  the  dark.  If  you  want  to  kill  bad 
germs,  open  the  windows  and  let  the  sunshine 
come  in.  This  man  Peter  had  been  living  in 
the  darkness,  and  the  germs  of  sin  and  evil 
had  grown  in  his  life  till  he  was  a  great  sin- 
ner. But  one  day  Jesus  passed  along  and 
called  Peter  to  follow  Him.  He  went,  and 
the  sunlight  of  Jesus  destroyed  the  evil,  and 
made  him  well  so  that  he  became  one  of  the 
greatest  saints  of  all  time. 

There  was  another  man  named  Saul.  He 
went  everywhere,  trying  to  do  all  the  evil  that 
he  could,  till  one  day,  as  he  was  on  the  way 
to  a  city  called  Damascus,  there  began  to 
shine  upon  him  a  light  from  heaven.     It  shone 


58  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

right  down  into  his  wicked  soul,  as  the  sun 
shines  into  the  face  of  the  sick  man  in  the  hos- 
pital, and  he  began  to  be  a  better  man,  and 
this  man  Saul  became  the  great  Apostle  Paul. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  I  used  to  go  out 
in  the  summer  and  pick  blackberries.  There 
was  a  clump  of  blackberry  bushes  back  of 
the  barn,  and  they  were  the  biggest  and  finest 
berries  around  anywhere.  It  didn't  take  long 
to  fill  a  little  pail  full  of  them.  But  when  I 
tasted  one  they  were  sour  and  bitter.  The 
trouble  was  that  there  were  some  big  trees 
there,  that  kept  the  sun  from  shining  on  those 
blackberry  vines,  and  the  fruit  was  always 
sour.  But  one  year  men  came  and  cut  down 
the  trees  and  then  the  berries  became  sweet 
and  good. 

That  is  the  reason  so  many  lives  are  bitter 
and  sour  and  sinful.  There  is  something  that 
is  keeping  the  sun  from  shining  on  them,  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness. 


XIV 

The  Hook  and  the  Bait 

"The  wiles  of  the  devil." — Ephesians  vi.  ii. 

Do  you  know  what  many  of  the  Lord's  dis- 
ciples did  for  a  Hving  ?  They  were  fisher- 
men. Jesus  sometimes  went  with  them  on 
their  fishing  trips  and  He  fished,  too.  In 
those  days,  just  as  now,  there  were  two  ways 
to  fish.  Sometimes  they  used  a  net  and 
caught  a  great  many  at  once.  One  night  the 
disciples  went  out  and  fished  till  almost  morn- 
ing and  didn't  catch  a  thing.  It  was  time  to 
go  home  and  they  had  no  fish  to  carry  to  the 
market  and  sell,  so  that  they  could  have  money 
to  buy  food  and  clothes  for  their  families. 
Just  then  Jesus  came  along  the  shore.  He 
told  them  to  cast  the  net  on  the  other  side  of 
the  ship.  They  did  as  He  told  them,  and 
caught  so  many  fish  that  there  was  not  room 
for  them  all  in  the  boat. 

Then  they  used  to  fish  with  a  hook  and 
line  as  we  do.  Once  Jesus  and  Peter  needed 
a  little  money  to  pay  their  taxes.  They  were 
very  poor  men,  and  when  the  tax  collector 
came  around  they  didn't  have  enough  to  pay 
59 


6o  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

him.  Jesus  told  Peter  to  take  his  rod  and 
line,  and  go  to  the  lake,  and  to  look  in  the 
mouth  of  the  first  fish  that  he  caught. 
Scarcely  had  Peter  dropped  the  bait  in  the 
water  when  he  had  a  fine  bite  and  hooked  a 
big  fish.  He  was  so  excited  getting  that  fish 
to  land,  that  I  imagine  he  forgot  for  the  mo- 
ment what  Jesus  had  sent  him  for,  but  when 
he  opened  the  mouth  of  the  fish  to  take  the 
hook  out,  there  was  the  money,  just  enough 
to  pay  the  tax  for  Jesus  and  for  him. 

When  Jesus  asked  the  disciples  to  follow 
Him,  He  told  them  that  they  were  going  to 
be  fishers  of  men.  Instead  of  catching  fish 
and  bringing  them  to  market,  they  were  to 
find  men  and  bring  them  to  Jesus.  That  is 
just  what  the  church  is  doing.  We  are  try- 
ing to  be  fishers  of  men.  Sometimes  we 
bring  a  large  number  at  once  as  the  fisher- 
men do  when  they  use  the  net,  but  mostly  it 
is  like  using  the  hook  and  line :  they  come 
one  by  one. 

One  of  the  first  things  necessary  to  fish 
successfully  is  to  have  some  bait.  God  has 
given  us  the  bait  to  use  when  we  fish  for 
men  :  good  deeds,  and  loving  words,  and  the 
Bible  and  prayer  and  the  church  and  Sunday- 
school  !  These  are  all  baits  which  we  can 
use  in  bringing  others  to  Jesus. 


The  Hook  and  the  Bait  6l 

Satan  is  a  fisherman,  too.  A  great  man 
once  said  that  Satan  is  the  ape  of  God. 
Whatever  God  does,  he  tries  to  do  for  an  evil 
purpose.  He  uses  bait,  and  he  is  trying 
every  day  to  catch  boys  and  girls. 

One  bait  that  Satan  uses  is  play.  Play  is 
a  fine  thing.  Children  must  have  play.  But 
there  are  some  games  and  amusements  that 
are  baits  which  Satan  has  fixed  up  to  catch 
them  with.  We  should  be  very  careful  in  our 
recreation  and  play  that  we  are  not  led  into 
evil. 

Then  there  are  our  books.  We  could  not 
do  without  our  books.  They  are  necessary 
to  us.  We  learn  from  them  every  day,  and 
they  give  us  pleasure  and  profit.  But  there 
are  some  books  that  Satan  is  using  as  bait  to 
get  men  and  women  and  boys  and  girls.  Be- 
fore we  read  a  book  we  ought  to  be  sure  that 
we  know  just  what  kind  of  a  book  it  is,  we 
ought  to  look  and  see  that  Satan's  hook  isn't 
sticking  in  it  somewhere. 

Then  there  are  our  companions.  Every- 
body loves  good  company.  We  would  not 
be  happy  if  we  did  not  have  some  compan- 
ions. Old  Satan  knows  this  and  he  tries  to 
catch  us  and  make  us  do  evil,  by  means  of 
bad  company. 

There  was  once  an  old  fish,  very  wise,  who 


62  1  he  Soul  of  a  Child 

said  to  one  of  the  young  fish,  "  Before  you 
bite  anything  go  all  around  it  and  see  that 
there  is  no  hook  sticking  into  it  anywhere." 

Money  is  another  of  Satan's  baits.  There 
was  a  bad  criminal  once  who  confessed  that 
his  evil  life  had  started  when  he  was  very 
young.  He  had  been  employed  as  an  office- 
boy.  Some  one  left  a  quarter  lying  on  a 
desk,  and  went  away  and  forgot  about  it. 
Satan  came  and  tempted  that  boy  to  steal 
the  money.  He  took  it.  That  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  life  of  evil.  Satan  used  that 
money  as  the  bait  to  catch  him. 

When  we  catch  a  fish  on  the  hook  he 
hasn't  much  chance  to  get  away.  If  Satan 
gets  us  with  his  bait  we  will  have  a  hard 
time  to  escape.     So  let  us  all  be  very  careful. 


XV 


Saying  "No" 

**  Let  your  nay  be  nay,  lest  ye  fall  into  condemnation." 
— James  v.  12. 

Our  newspapers  have  been  having  fun 
over  the  names  of  some  of  the  towns  in 
Russia.  They  are  long  names  and  hard  to 
pronounce,  and  the  attempts  that  people 
make  to  say  them  are  often  very  funny.  But 
there  are  words  in  our  own  language  that  are 
hard  to  speak.  One  of  the  shortest  words 
that  we  know  is  one  of  the  very  hardest  to 
say  sometimes.  It  is  the  little  word  of  two 
letters,  ''  No." 

Some  one  was  telling  me  of  a  young  man 
who  had  gone  wrong.  His  parents  did 
everything  for  him  and  gave  him  every  ad- 
vantage. The  great  trouble  was  that  they 
had  not  taught  him  to  say  *'  No."  When 
temptation  came  to  him  to  do  what  was 
wrong,  he  never  had  the  courage  to  stand  up 
and  say,  "  No,  I  will  not."  He  had  learned 
many  things  but  he  had  never  learned  that. 

There  was  a  little  boy  named  Albert  Smith, 
63 


64  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

and  one  fine  summer  afternoon  his  mother 
told  him  that  he  must  not  go  swimming  that 
day.  So  he  made  up  his  mind  to  stay  around 
the  house  the  rest  of  the  day.  But  before 
long  he  heard  the  boys  coming  down  the 
road,  and  calling  out  to  him,  "  Come  on. 
Let's  go  swimming.  The  water  is  fine.*' 
Now,  Albert's  mother  had  told  him  not  to  go, 
and  he  ought  to  have  said,  **  No,  I  can't  go 
to-day."  But  just  then  Albert  began  to  think 
about  that  water  and  the  fun  that  the  boys 
were  going  to  have,  and  when  he  tried  to  say 
**  No,"  it  seemed  to  stick  somewhere  in  his 
throat,  and  wouldn't  come  out.  The  first 
thing  he  knew,  he  was  going  down  the  road 
with  the  boys  to  do  what  his  mother  had  told 
him  he  must  not  do,  and  all  because  he  hadn't 
been  able  to  say  "  No." 

We  have  all  had  times  when  it  was  hard  to 
say  that  little  word  that  seems  so  easy. 

When  an  army  pitches  its  tents  for  the 
night,  sentinels  are  stationed  all  around  the 
camp,  and  no  one  is  allowed  to  go  through 
those  lines  of  sentinels,  unless  he  is  able  to 
give  the  password.  Do  you  know  that  there 
is  a  password  to  life  which  we  must  all  learn, 
before  we  can  enter  into  the  larger,  greater 
life  that  every  boy  and  every  girl  longs  for  ? 
It  is  the  litde  word  "  No." 


Saying  "No''  65 

There  are  so  many  times  in  life  when  you 
need  that  word  more  than  anything  else  in 
the  world.  When  bad  companions  come,  and 
they  try  to  induce  you  to  do  what  you  know 
is  wrong,  have  the  courage  to  say  "  No,"  and 
mean  **  No."  You  know  there  are  some  peo- 
ple who  say  **  No  "  and  do  not  half  mean  it. 
A  little  coaxing  will  make  them  say  "  Yes." 
Our  text  tells  us  what  to  do.  "  Let  your  nay 
be  nay."  Say  *'  No  "  and  mean  it,  and  hold 
to  it. 

Then  we  must  say  "  No  "  when  we  are 
tempted  to  forget  what  we  have  been  taught 
in  Sunday-school,  and  in  our  Christian 
homes. 

Long  ago  there  was  a  young  man  in  the 
employ  of  Stephen  Girard,  the  great  Philadel- 
phia merchant.  One  day  Mr.  Girard  told 
him  to  do  some  work  on  Sunday.  The 
young  man  said,  "  No,  I  am  a  Christian,  and 
I  promised  my  mother  that  I  would  not  work 
on  Sunday."  Mr.  Girard  told  him  he  could 
not  keep  him  unless  he  was  willing  to  do  as 
he  was  ordered,  and  he  was  discharged. 

Not  very  long  after  a  man  came  to  Mr. 
Girard  and  said,  "  I  need  a  young  man  to  fill 
a  very  responsible  position  in  my  business. 
Do  you  know  of  any  one  ?  "  Mr.  Girard  an- 
swered, **  I  know  just  the  man.     I  had  to  let 


66  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

him  go  because  he  would  not  work  on  Sun- 
day. He  wasn't  afraid  to  say  *  No,'  and  stick 
to  it,  even  when  it  meant  the  loss  of  his  place. 
You  will  not  make  any  mistake  to  take  him." 
And  so  he  found  a  better  position  than  the 
one  he  had  lost. 

All  the  world  honors  the  boy  or  girl  who 
is  able  to  say  **  No." 

The  bravest  boy  is  not  he  who  fights  the 
most.  That  is  not  real  courage.  A  dog,  oi 
a  snake,  or  a  bear  will  fight  bravely  if  he  is 
angry  enough.  The  highest,  finest  kind  of 
courage  is  that  of  the  boy  who  is  able  to  say 
**  No  "  when  he  is  tempted  to  do  something 
that  is  wrong.  He  has  won  a  battle  with 
Satan,  and  that  is  the  greatest  victory  that 
any  of  us  can  win. 


XVI 

The  Lion  and  the  Bear 

•«  Thy  servant  slew  both  the  lion  and  the  bear." 
— I  Samuel  xvii.  36. 

One  of  the  greatest  soldiers  who  ever  lived 
was  David.  He  was  so  strong  that  he  could 
break  a  bow  of  steel  with  his  arms,  and  he 
was  so  brave  that  he  was  not  afraid  to  go 
and  fight  a  giant,  with  nothing  but  a  sling 
and  a  few  stones. 

Before  he  became  king  he  had  been  a 
shepherd  boy.  It  had  been  his  duty  to  lead 
the  sheep  out  to  the  hillside  every  morning 
and  stay  with  them  all  day  so  that  no  harm 
would  come  to  them,  and  then  bring  them 
safely  back  home  to  the  fold  at  night. 

One  day  a  lion  came  to  kill  the  sheep,  and 
David  stood  between  the  lion  and  the  sheep 
and  killed  the  lion.  At  another  time  a  bear 
got  into  the  sheepfold.  David  took  a  club 
and  killed  him.  These  were  the  first  battles 
that  David  fought,  and  they  show  what  a 
brave  boy  he  was,  for  it  takes  courage  to 
stand  up  against  a  lion  and  a  bear.  In  after 
67 


68  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

years  he  had  many  other  hard  battles,  with 
Goliath,  and  with  the  Philistines,  and  with 
the  Syrians,  but  I  am  sure  that  none  of  these 
fights  were  quite  so  hard  as  those  first  ones 
with  the  lion  and  the  bear.  If  he  had  let  the 
lion  or  the  bear  conquer  him,  he  never  would 
have  lived  to  fight  with  Goliath,  and  to  be  a 
great  king. 

Every  boy  and  girl  is  like  King  David  in 
one  thing.  The  first  batdes  thy  have  to  fight 
are  with  the  lion  and  the  bear. 

Let  me  tell  you  first  about  the  lion.  It 
isn't  a  lion  in  a  cage  such  as  you  see  when 
the  circus  comes  to  town.  It  is  a  lion  inside 
of  us.  It  is  bad  temper.  Almost  all  of  us 
have  somewhere  inside  of  us  a  temper  that 
sometimes  gets  the  better  of  us.  You  know 
how  a  lion  attacks  a  man.  He  watches  his 
chance,  and  when  the  man  isn't  looking  or 
thinking,  he  springs  upon  him.  That  is  the 
way  bad  temper  and  passion  come  upon  us. 
They  spring  upon  us  and  get  the  mastery 
before  we  know  it. 

If  you  go  to  the  menagerie  you  will  see  a 
lion  shut  in  a  strong  cage.  You  are  not 
afraid  of  him  because  he  is  locked  in  behind 
those  stout  bars.  But  if  some  one  should 
leave  that  door  open,  so  that  he  could  get  out, 
then  you  would  be  afraid.     That  is  the  way 


The  Lion  and  the  Bear  69 

with  the  lion  of  temper.  He  must  be  shut 
up  and  guarded  day  and  night,  so  that  he 
cannot  hurt  any  one.  And  if  our  tempers 
do  some  time  get  the  mastery  of  us,  we 
ought,  as  David  did  with  that  lion,  to  fight 
and  overcome  them. 

Paul  said,  "  He  that  overcometh  his  spirit 
is  better  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 

Then  there  is  the  bear.  We  must  not  for- 
get about  him.  David  killed  the  bear,  too. 
The  best  thing  about  a  good  litde  child  is  his 
gentleness.  You  know  little  bears  are  not 
gentle.  They  are  cross  and  clumsy  and  go 
around  making  trouble  wherever  they  are. 
They  are  very  much  Uke  some  little  boys, 
who  are  rough  and  cross  and  ill-mannered. 

They  used  to  say  that  an  old  mother  bear 
never  lets  the  little  bear  out  of  the  den  till  he 
has  been  licked  into  shape.  Some  one  has 
said  that  there  are  hosts  of  fathers  and  moth- 
ers who  let  their  children  out  into  the  world, 
before  they  have  been  made  to  mind,  and 
that  is  why  they  are  so  ill-mannered  and 
cruel  and  unkind,  for  all  the  world  like  little 
bears.  David's  second  great  fight  was  with 
the  bear.  One  of  the  first  things  that  every- 
body ought  to  do  is  to  fight  and  overcome 
his  bearishness. 

Paul  said  in  another  place,  "  Be  ye  kind." 


70  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Kindness  is  one  of  the  best  weapons  with 
which  to  overcome  bearishness.  Some  of 
the  biggest,  strongest  men  in  the  world  have 
been  the  gentlest,  because  they  knew  how  to 
be  kind. 

One  day  Abraham  Lincoln  was  riding 
with  one  of  his  friends  along  a  road  in  Illi- 
nois, when  he  stopped,  jumped  down  from 
his  horse,  and  began  to  feel  around  in  the 
grass  under  a  bush. 

His  companion  said  to  him,  *'  Did  you  lose 
something,  Mr.  Lincoln?"  **  No,"  he  said, 
"  I  saw  a  little  bird  fall  out  of  her  nest  as  we 
passed,  and  I  am  trying  to  find  her  and  put 
her  back  again." 

It  was  little  acts  such  as  this  that  made 
him  so  gentle. 

David,  I  imagine,  killed  the  lion  and  the 
bear  with  a  club.  We  can  kill  our  lions  and 
bears  with  kindness  and  gentleness. 


XVII 

Behavior  in  Church 

**  Thou  oughtcst  to  behave  thyself  in  the  house  of 
God." — I  Timothy  iii.  15. 

Long  ago  the  great  Apostle  Paul  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  young  friend,  Timothy,  and  in 
that  letter  he  told  him  something  that  I  wish 
you  would  all  remember.  It  was  this,  "  Thou 
oughtest  to  behave  thyself  in  the  house  of 
God."  Fathers  and  mothers,  these  days,  have 
to  tell  their  children  to  behave  when  they  go 
to  church,  and  I  imagine  that  the  boys  of 
Paul's  time  were  very  much  as  they  are  to- 
day, for  Paul  here  had  to  tell  Timothy  to  be- 
have himself  when  he  went  to  church. 

There  are  a  few  things  about  the  house  of 
God  we  ought  never  to  forget.  The  wise 
man,  Solomon,  once  said,  *'  Keep  thy  foot 
when  thou  goest  to  the  house  of  God."  That 
means  to  walk  softly  and  be  reverent.  I 
once  saw  a  little  girl  tiptoeing  past  a  house, 
and  when  I  came  to  the  house  I  saw  that 
there  was  crape  on  the  door.  She  thought 
that  God  had  been  there,  and  she  ought  to 
71 


72  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

go  very  softly.  So  we  ought  to  tread  very 
softly  and  reverently  when  we  enter  the 
church.     It  is  God's  house. 

Then  when  we  come  in  we  ought  to  offer 
up  a  little  prayer.  When  you  go  to  some- 
body's house  and  he  comes  to  the  door 
you  always  speak  to  him,  don't  you?  It 
would  not  be  very  polite  to  go  into  some 
one's  house  without  speaking  to  him.  So 
when  we  come  into  God's  house  we  must 
speak  to  Him  in  prayer. 

Then  all  the  time  we  are  in  the  church,  we 
must  try  to  think  about  God  and  the  things 
that  we  hear.  Sometimes  when  we  are  talk- 
ing to  some  one,  we  know  he  is  thinking 
about  something  else  all  the  time.  This  is 
very  rude  and  we  are  likely  to  feel  hurt.  But 
it  is  what  many  people  do  when  they  come 
into  God's  house,  where  He  is  being  wor- 
shipped. They  spend  the  whole  time  think- 
ing about  other  things  than  the  service.  I 
don't  wonder,  do  you,  that  God  is  hurt  and 
angry.  God  wants  us  when  we  come  into 
His  house  to  think  about  Him. 

And  there  is  one  other  thing  that  we  must 
do  in  God's  house.  We  must  ask  God  to 
forgive  our  sins. 

There  is  a  stor}^  about  a  fairy  who  went  up 
to  the  gate  of  heaven  and  was  not  allowed  to 


Behavior  in  Church  73 

enter.  The  angel  said,  "  If  you  will  bring 
the  gift  that  is  dearest  to  heaven,  then  you 
can  come  in."  So  the  fairy  flew  back  as  fast 
as  she  could  to  the  earth  and  found  the  most 
lovely  and  fragrant  flower  that  there  was  on 
the  earth,  and  brought  it,  but  the  gate  was 
shut.  Again  she  flew  back  to  the  earth,  and 
this  time  she  brought  a  drop  of  blood  from  a 
young  hero,  who  had  just  died  for  his  country ; 
but  the  gate  was  shut  still.  The  third  time 
she  went  to  the  earth,  and  while  she  was  wan- 
dering around,  she  saw  a  wicked  old  man 
stopping  at  a  fountain  to  give  his  horse  a 
drink.  Just  then  the  man  saw  a  little  child 
kneeling  down  to  say  his  little  evening  prayer. 
When  the  bad  man  saw  that,  all  his  wicked 
life  arose  in  his  memory  and  he  was  sorry, 
and  he,  too,  knelt  and  prayed,  and  as  hi. 
prayed  he  wept.  And  the  fairy,  who  had 
seen  it  all,  caught  one  of  those  tears  of  re- 
pentance and  flew  up  to  heaven  with  it,  and 
the  gate  was  open,  and  she  went  in. 

There  is  nothing  that  is  so  dear  to  the 
Lord  as  the  repentance  of  His  children. 
That  is  what  makes  Jesus,  and  the  Bible, 
and  the  church  so  dear  to  us.  They  show 
us  how  to  repent  so  that  Heaven's  gate  may 
open  wide  for  us. 


XVIII 

Seeing  and  Knowing  God 

"  I  have  seen  God  face  to  face." — Genesis  xxxii.  30. 

What  does  God  look  like  ?  Almost  every 
boy  and  girl  asks  that  question  sometimes. 
When  we  pray  to  Him  and  read  about  Him 
in  the  Bible,  we  are  always  wondering  and 
wishing  that  we  could  see  Him.  The  Bible 
tells  us  that  no  man  can  see  God  and  live. 
This  used  to  trouble  me  very  much.  I 
couldn't  understand  why,  if  He  is  a  good 
and  loving  God,  everybody  cannot  see  Him. 

One  day  I  heard  a  little  story  that  made  it 
plainer  to  me.  There  was  a  missionary  who 
was  visiting  a  king  in  India.  He  had  been 
trying  to  tell  the  old  heathen  ruler  about  the 
true  God.  At  last  the  king  said,  **  Why  don't 
you  show  me  your  God  ?  I  tell  you  about 
my  gods  and  I  take  you  and  show  them  to 
you.  You  tell  me  about  your  God,  but  you 
never  let  me  see  Him." 

The  missionary  answered,  **  But  no  one 
can  see  my  God.  No  one  can  look  on  Him 
and  live.'* 

74 


Seeing  and  Knowing  God  75 

The  old  heathen  said,  "  I  don't  understand 
that."  Then  the  missionary  went  to  the  win- 
dow and  told  the  king  to  come  and  look  at 
something.  When  the  king  came  he  pointed 
at  the  sun  and  told  him  to  look  hard  at  it  for 
a  moment.  The  king  tried  and  then  turned 
his  head  away  and  said,  "  I  can't  look  at  the 
sun.     It  blinds  me." 

"Yes,"  said  the  missionary,  "that  sun  is 
just  one  of  God's  poor  servants,  and  if  you 
are  not  able  to  look  at  that,  do  you  think 
that  you  could  look  at  God  Himself?  " 

That  is  the  reason  we  cannot  look  upon 
God.  He  is  so  great  and  so  wonderful  and 
so  bright  that  the  very  sight  of  Him  is  too 
much  for  our  eyes  to  see. 

Perhaps  we  cannot  see  God's  face,  but  we 
can  come  very  close  to  Him  if  we  know  how. 
In  the  time  of  Moses  God  came  down  on 
Mount  Sinai,  and  the  people  all  ran  away. 
They  were  afraid,  but  we  are  told  that  Moses 
went  straight  up  to  the  place  where  God  was. 
He  was  not  afraid. 

Some  years  ago  some  men  went  to  Wash- 
ington to  see  the  president.  When  they  came 
to  the  door  of  the  White  House  where  he 
lived,  they  were  told  that  he  was  very  busy, 
and  it  would  be  a  long  time  before  he  could 
see  them.     So  they  sat  down  there  to  wait. 


76  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

While  they  were  sitting  there,  a  little  boy 
came  up  the  walk,  and  opening  the  door  of 
the  president's  room,  went  straight  in  and  sat 
down  by  the  president.  Do  you  know  why 
he  went  in  while  every  one  else  had  to  wait  ? 
It  was  because  he  was  the  son  of  the  presi- 
dent, and  he  could  see  him  at  any  time. 

That  is  why  Moses  was  not  afraid  to  go 
into  the  presence  of  God.  Moses  was  God's 
child,  and  God  loved  him,  and  he  loved  God. 
If  we  love  God,  and  He  loves  us,  then  we 
are  His  children,  and  He  is  always  ready  and 
willing  to  have  us  come  to  Him. 

God  wants  us  to  know  Him.  There  was 
once  a  wise  king  who  desired  to  know  his 
subjects,  and  wanted  them  to  know  him. 
While  he  lived  in  the  palace  he  could  never 
come  to  know  them  very  well.  They  were 
too  far  away  from  him.  So  he  dressed  him- 
self so  that  they  would  not  know  he  was  the 
king,  and  went  and  lived  among  them  as  a 
carpenter.  They  did  not  know  who  this  poor 
workman  was,  but  he  was  so  good  and  gentle 
that  they  all  came  to  love  him,  and  then  they 
found  out  that  he  was  their  king. 

That  is  what  Jesus  did.  He  came  and 
lived  among  us  as  a  poor  workman.  He 
came  to  make  us  love  Him  and  to  show  us 
how   much    He   loves   us.     And   before   He 


Seeing  and  Knowing  God  77 

went  away  He  said,  ''  He  that  hath  seen  Me 
hath  seen  the  Father." 

It  is  this  that  I  want  you  to  remember 
most  of  all  in  connection  with  this  text.  If 
you  want  to  see  God,  look  at  Jesus.  Take 
the  New  Testament  and  read  about  Him  and 
in  learning  to  know  Him  you  will  come  to 
know  God. 


XIX 

What  Jesus  Did  When  He  Was 
a  Child 

**  Who  went  about  doing  good." — Acts  x.  38. 

The  New  Testament  tells  us  many  things 
about  Jesus  after  He  became  a  man.  It  does 
not  say  much  about  the  child  Jesus,  so  we 
ought  to  study  and  treasure  very  carefully 
everything  that  is  said  about  His  boyhood. 

What  kind  of  a  place  did  Jesus  live  in 
when  He  was  a  boy  ?  It  was  a  very  small 
town  and  a  very  poor  and  very  dirty  town. 
The  streets  were  so  narrow  in  some  places 
that  a  woman  could  reach  her  hand  out  of 
her  window  on  one  side  of  the  street,  and 
shake  hands  with  the  woman,  who  was  stand- 
ing in  her  window,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street.  If  a  cart  or  a  camel  came  along  one 
of  those  narrow,  dark  streets,  the  children 
had  to  run  into  the  houses  to  get  out  of  the 
way. 

The  streets  were  also  very  dirty.  There 
were  no  sewers  then,  or  garbage  wagons, 
and  there  was  rubbish  and  filth  everywhere. 
78 


The  Child  Jesus  79 

The  only  time  that  the  streets  were  cleaned 
was  when  it  rained  very  hard. 

Jesus  lived  in  a  very  poor  little  house. 
The  walls  were  bare  and  there  was  almost 
no  furniture.  He  had  none  of  the  comfort- 
able and  pretty  things  that  you  have  in  your 
homes.  He  was  a  very  poor  boy.  There 
were  no  beds  or  chairs  in  His  home,  and 
when  He  went  to  sleep  at  night  He  lay  on 
the  floor  on  a  little  rug. 

Nowadays  sometimes  we  hear  boys  and 
girls  grumble  and  complain  because  they 
haven't  as  much  as  some  one  else,  but  there 
is  not  one  of  you  who  has  not  a  better  home, 
and  more  to  make  you  contented  than  Jesus 
had  when  He  was  a  little  child. 

What  did  Jesus  do  when  He  was  a  child  ? 
I  think  that  He  did  pretty  much  the  same 
things  that  boys  do  now.  He  was  like  every 
other  healthy  boy.  He  loved  to  run  and 
play  and  have  a  good  time.  Some  of  the 
games  that  we  play  now  are  thousands 
of  years  old.  "Hide-and-seek,"  "fox  and 
geese,"  and  some  of  our  other  out-of-door 
games,  were  played  in  Palestine  in  the  time 
of  Jesus,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of 
the  very  games  that  you  enjoy  so  much, 
Jesus  used  to  play  long  ago  when  He  was 
on  earth. 


8o  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

But  Jesus  did  something  beside  play.  We 
are  told  that  He  went  about  doing  good. 
That  means  that  everywhere  He  went  He 
tried  to  make  people  happier  by  helping 
them. 

There  was  an  old  English  admiral,  long 
ago,  who  always  carried  with  him  a  pocket- 
ful of  acorns.  Whenever  a  chance  came  he 
would  plant  one.  Some  one  asked  him  why 
he  did  it.  He  replied,  "  I  want  to  have  plenty 
of  oak  trees  to  make  ships  for  my  country." 

Wouldn't  it  be  a  fine  thing  for  every  one 
of  us  to  carry  goodness  and  happiness  about 
with  us,  and  leave  a  little  everywhere  we  go  ? 
That  was  what  Jesus  did.  "  He  went  about 
doing  good." 

There  was  a  man  of  whom  I  heard,  who 
rode  out  every  evening  from  business  to  his 
home  in  a  railroad  train.  There  isn't  much 
fun  in  standing  every  day  for  three-quarters 
of  an  hour  on  a  crowded  train.  But  this  man 
has  a  good  time  doing  it.  Let  me  tell  you 
how  he  does  it.  Every  day  there  are  many 
people  on  that  train  who  have  to  stand. 
Among  them  are  tired  women,  and  old  men, 
who  cannot  hurry  enough  to  get  there  before 
all  the  seats  are  taken.  This  man  said  to 
himself :  **  I  am  big  and  strong  and  every 
night,  when  the  rush  comes  for  seats,  I  am 


The  Child  Jesus  8l 

going  to  get  a  good  seat  and  hold  it  for  some 
one  who  needs  it  more  than  I  do." 

So  every  evening  when  the  crowd  pushes 
through  the  gate,  he  is  one  of  the  first  on  the 
train,  and  always  gets  a  good  seat.  Then 
when  it  is  crowded  he  gives  that  seat  to  the 
most  tired  person  that  he  can  see,  who  has  not 
been  able  to  get  there  in  time  to  find  one. 

He  said,  "  I  used  to  think  hard  of  the  rail- 
road because  they  do  not  give  us  enough 
seats  to  go  around  in  the  rush  hours,  but  I 
am  glad  of  it  now,  for  it  gives  me  a  fine 
chance  to  help  some  one  else." 

There  is  a  little  verse  that  we  all  ought  to 
know,  said  to  have  been  written  by  William 
Penn,  "  I  shall  pass  through  this  world  but 
once.  Any  good  thing,  therefore,  that  I  can 
do,  or  any  kindness  that  I  can  show  to  any 
human  being,  let  me  do  it  now.  Let  me  not 
neglect  it,  or  defer  it,  for  I  shall  not  pass  this 
way  again." 


XX 

I  Didn't  Mean  To 

**  A  certain  man  drew  a  bow  at  a  venture,  and  smote  the 

king  of  Israel  between  the  joints  of  the  armor." 

—  I  Kings  xxii.  34. 

About  twenty-seven  hundred  years  ago 
there  was  a  king  of  Israel  named  Ahab.  One 
day  he  went  out  with  his  army  to  fight  against 
the  Syrians.  Now,  Ahab  was  a  coward. 
He  was  afraid  that  when  the  Syrians  saw  him 
they  would  try  to  kill  him  because  he  was  the 
king  of  Israel.  So  he  took  off  the  fine  armor 
and  the  plumed  helmet  that  kings  always 
wore  in  battle  and  put  on  the  armor  of  an  or- 
dinary soldier.  He  did  this  so  that  the  Syr- 
ians would  not  know  who  he  was.  By  and 
by  the  batde  was  being  fought  and  the  Syr- 
ians looked  around  for  Ahab,  but  they  could 
not  find  him. 

Off  there  in  the  Syrian  army  was  a  sol- 
dier with  a  bow  and  a  quiver  of  arrows.  He 
tightened  his  bowstring,  took  an  arrow  and 
put  it  against  the  string  and  looked  for  an 
Israelite  to  shoot  at.  He  did  not  see  any 
very  near  him  so  he  just  shot  off  that  arrow 
into  the  air,  not  at  anything  in  particular. 
82 


I  Didn't  Mean  To  83 

That  is  what  we  mean  by  drawing  a  bow  at 
a  venture.  Let  me  tell  you  what  became  of 
that  arrow.  It  went  up  and  over  and  down, 
and  hit  the  king  of  Israel  who  was  trying  so 
hard  not  to  be  killed  that  day.  There  was  a 
place  in  the  armor  where  the  girdle  and  the 
breastplate  came  together,  a  little  joint,  and  in 
there  the  arrow  went  and  killed  King  Ahab. 

The  man  in  the  Syrian  army  did  not  mean 
to  do  that.  It  is  likely  that  he  never  knew  as 
long  as  he  lived  that  his  arrow  had  killed  the 
king. 

Did  you  ever  hear  boys  and  girls  say,  "  I 
didn't  mean  to  "  ?  When  we  start  out  we  very 
seldom  mean  to  do  wrong.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  we  are  so  often  guilty  of  doing  evil  things  ? 

There  was  a  story,  that  I  read  once  in  an 
old  school  book,  of  a  workman  who  was  busy 
building  a  ship.  He  came  upon  a  wormy 
plank  in  a  pile  of  lumber.  He  ought  not  to 
have  put  it  into  the  ship,  but  he  thought  to 
himself,  ''  It  is  only  one  small  plank  and  it 
will  not  matter."  So  he  put  it  in  and  forgot 
all  about  it.  After  a  while  the  ship  was  fin- 
ished and  went  to  sea.  For  years  it  did  well, 
and  then  it  was  found  that  the  timbers  were 
eaten  with  worms.  They  tried  to  repair  it 
but  it  became  worse  and  worse,  till  one  day 
while  out  at  sea  it  began  to  leak  badly.     They 


84  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

tried  to  pump  out  the  water,  but  it  came  in 
faster  than  they  could  get  it  out,  and  the  crew 
only  saved  themselves  by  taking  to  the  boats. 
It  was  that  one  wormy  plank  that  caused  the 
less  of  that  valuable  ship.  The  man  who  put 
it  in  there  did  not  mean  to  sink  the  ship,  any 
more  than  that  soldier  meant  to  kill  the  king, 
but  he  did. 

Some  of  the  little  things,  that  we  do  not 
mean  to  do,  are  those  that  most  hurt  others. 
The  Prophet  Jeremiah  says  that  the  tongue 
is  like  an  arrow.  It  is  often  like  the  arrow 
of  this  soldier.  It  does  what  we  do  not  mean 
it  to  do. 

There  was  a  story  in  one  of  our  papers 
about  a  poor  girl  in  one  of  our  great  cities. 
Her  father  had  been  killed,  and  she  was  work- 
ing for  her  living,  and  trying  to  support  her 
mother  and  her  little  sisters  and  brothers.  It 
took  so  much  for  all  this  that  she  did  not 
have  anything  left  to  buy  pretty  clothes  with. 
Some  of  the  girls  in  the  shop  where  she 
worked  made  fun  of  her  shabby  dress.  She 
was  very  sensitive  and  thought  about  it  till 
her  mind  became  affected.  Then  she  ran  ofl 
and  jumped  into  the  river.  Those  thought- 
less girls  did  not  mean  to  hurt  her  feelings. 
Their  tongues  were  like  that  arrow.  They 
killed  when  they  did  not  mean  to. 


I  Didn't  Mean  To  85 

Good  words  are  as  arrows  too.  One  of 
the  great  ministers  of  this  country  tells  of 
crossing  the  ocean  one  summer.  On  the 
ship  was  a  lawyer,  the  attorney-general  of 
his  state.  One  night  the  minister  was  pass- 
ing the  lawyer's  stateroom.  The  door  was 
open,  and  as  he  looked  in  he  saw  him  read- 
ing his  Bible.  Just  then  the  lawyer  looked 
up  and  saw  the  minister  and  said,  "  Come 
in,"  and  he  went  in.  *'  I  am  very  glad,"  said 
the  minister,  "  to  see  you  reading  the  Bible." 
**  Yes,"  said  the  other,  "  I  read  it  through  at 
least  once  each  year.  I  did  not  know  much 
about  this  book  till  a  few  years  ago.  One 
day  a  litde  girl  said  to  me,  *  Judge,  have  you 
ever  read  the  Bible  through  ?'  I  said,  *  No, 
have  you  ? '  She  said,  '  Yes,  of  course  I 
have.'  That  set  me  thinking.  I  said  to  my- 
self, *  Here  I  am,  the  attorney-general  of  this 
state,  and  I  have  never  read  through  the 
book  upon  which  our  whole  civilization  rests.* 
For  pure  shame  I  went  and  read  it  to  the 
end,  and  I  have  never  failed  once  each  year 
to  go  through  it  again." 

That  little  girl's  arrow  had  hit  the  judge. 
Be  sure  that  the  words  you  speak  are  good 
words,  so  that  when  they  hit,  they  will  help 
instead  of  hurt. 


XXI 

Small  Beginnings 

**  Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kindleth.     And 
the  tongue  is  a  fire." — James  iii.  5-6. 

About  forty-five  years  ago  there  was  a 
terrible  fire  in  the  city  of  Chicago.  Seventy 
thousand  people  had  their  homes  burned  up  ; 
two  hundred  were  killed,  and  one  hundred 
and  ninety  millions  worth  of  property  was 
destroyed.  Do  you  know  how  that  great 
fire  started  ?  It  all  came  from  a  tiny  lantern 
that  a  man  had  taken  with  him  to  the  barn. 
While  he  milked  his  cow  it  was  knocked  over 
in  some  hay  and  that  began  it  all. 

There  were  two  little  boys  whom  I  knew. 
They  had  been  told  by  their  father  not  to  play 
with  matches.  Back  of  the  house  where  they 
lived  was  a  great  forest,  which  ran  up  over 
the  mountain  for  many  miles.  One  day  those 
boys  went  off  into  the  mountain  for  a  tramp, 
and  took  some  matches  with  them.  One  of 
them  said,  **  Let's  make  a  fire  with  some  of 
these  old  leaves."  So  they  disobeyed  their 
father  and  made  a  fire,  and  after  watching  it 
86 


Small  Beginnings  87 

a  while  came  away  and  left  it.  That  night 
while  they  were  sleeping,  the  fire  alarm  was 
sounded  in  the  village.  The  forest  was  on 
fire.  Every  man  turned  out,  and  by  working 
hard  all  that  night,  and  all  the  next  day  they 
succeeded  in  putting  the  fire  out,  but  many 
hundreds  of  dollars  worth  of  fine  timber  had 
been  destroyed.  See  what  a  great  matter  a 
little  fire  kindled. 

The  good  man  who  wrote  this  verse  said 
that  the  tongue  was  like  a  fire.  It  is  very 
small,  like  the  flame  of  a  match,  but  it  can  do 
great  evil  if  we  do  not  watch  and  control  it. 

There  are  two  families  living  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  street.  The  men  have  had  a  big 
quarrel,  and  the  women  do  not  speak  to  each 
other  when  they  pass,  and  the  little  children 
have  been  told  not  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  one  another.  Those  two  families  have 
had  so  much  trouble  that  it  is  the  talk  of  the 
town,  and  it  all  started  from  one  little  unkind 
thing  that  one  woman  said  about  another. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  these  words,  "  The 
tongue  is  a  fire."  It  is  very  little  but  it  can 
start  a  world  of  trouble. 

Not  only  can  the  tongue  do  great  evil  if  it 
speaks  wrong  words,  but  it  can  do  great  good 
if  it  speaks  the  things  that  are  right. 

In  the  city  of  New  York  there  is  a  building 


88  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

called  the  McAuley  Mission.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  famous  missions  in  the  world,  for  thou- 
sands of  wicked  men  have  found  God  there, 
and  have  started  to  live  good  lives.  Let  me 
tell  you  how  that  mission  got  its  name. 
Many  years  ago  there  was  a  bad  man  in  that 
city  named  Jerry  McAuley.  He  had  spent 
the  most  of  his  life  in  prison.  He  was  a 
river  thief,  who  stole  from  ships  and  boats 
along  the  docks.  No  sooner  would  he  be 
out  of  prison  for  one  crime  than  he  would 
commit  another  and  be  sent  back.  His 
family  had  all  deserted  him  and  the  police 
hated  him.  He  did  not  have  a  friend  in  the 
world,  and  for  months  at  a  time  no  one  ever 
thought  of  speaking  a  kind  word  to  him. 

One  cold  winter  day  he  was  standing  on 
the  street  corner  shivering.  He  was  hungry, 
too,  for  he  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since 
morning.  Just  then  a  man  came  along  and 
stopped  and  spoke  a  few  kind  words  to  him. 
It  was  so  long  since  Jerry  McAuley  had 
heard  any  one  speak  that  way  that  he  did 
not  know  what  to  say. 

It  was  the  kind  word  that  man  spoke  that 
finally  made  Jerry  McAuley  a  Christian. 
Then  he  went  and  opened  a  place,  where  he 
might  help  other  poor  men  like  himself,  and 
before  he  died  he  had  saved  thousands  of 


Small  Beginnings  89 

them.  It  was  all  the  result  of  that  kind 
word. 

A  match  is  not  as  big  as  a  baby's  little  fin- 
ger, but  it  can  do  great  things.  That  match 
can  start  a  fire  in  the  stove  that  will  warm 
the  house,  and  cook  your  dinner,  and  make 
everybody  happy  and  comfortable.  Or  it 
may  set  fire  to  the  house,  and  burn  up  the 
things  that  you  love  most,  and  make  every 
one  wretched  and  unhappy. 

The  tongue  is  like  that  match.  If  we  use 
it  to  speak  kind  and  gentle  words,  it  will  bless 
and  help.  But  if  we  speak  evil  words  it  will 
bring  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing. 


XXII 
Lamps 

**  Thou  shalt  bring  in  the  candlestick,  and  light  the 
lamps  thereof." — Exodus  xl.  4. 

To-day  we  are  to  talk  about  lamps.  A 
lamp  is  something  that  gives  light.  The 
very  first  lights  that  people  had  long  ago 
were  torchlights.  They  made  a  fire  at  the 
end  of  a  dry  stick  and  set  it  up  in  the  ground. 
That  was  the  best  light  that  they  knew. 

Then  a  little  later  they  made  lamps  of 
brass,  and  filled  them  with  olive  oil,  and  put 
a  little  wick  in  the  oil  and  lighted  it.  That 
was  a  much  better  light  than  the  torch. 

Next  they  learned  to  make  candles,  and 
there  are  people  living  to-day  who  will  tell 
you  that  the  finest  lights  that  they  had  in 
their  houses  when  they  were  young  were 
candles. 

About  fifty  years  ago  they  discovered  pe- 
troleum in  Pennsylvania,  out  of  which  they 
made  kerosene  oil.  That  was  better  yet. 
Then  they  began  to  make  gas  lights,  and  now 
we  have  electricity  and  our  houses  are  as 
90 


Lamps  91 

bright  at  night  almost  as  they  are  in  the  day- 
time. It  is  interesting  to  guess  what  the 
next  kind  of  light  will  be,  for  we  seem  to  be 
getting  something  new  and  better  all  the 
time. 

In  the  little  verse  which  we  have  for  a  text, 
God  told  the  people  to  bring  in  the  candle- 
stick and  light  the  lamps  thereof. 

In  the  city  of  Rome  there  is  a  church  that 
has  not  a  single  light  in  it.  This  seems  very 
strange,  and  one  of  the  first  questions  that 
people  ask  when  they  go  into  that  church  is : 
How  do  they  get  along  without  any  lights 
when  they  have  a  service  at  night?  If  you 
go  into  that  church  some  night  just  before 
the  time  for  service  to  begin,  you  will  find  the 
church  in  darkness,  and  you  will  have  to 
grope  your  way  along  the  wall  to  keep  from 
falling.  But  very  soon  the  people  begin  to 
come  and  each  one  carries  a  lighted  candle. 
One  candle  does  not  give  much  light  in  a  big 
church,  but  the  people  keep  coming  and 
coming,  hundreds  of  them,  each  with  a  can- 
dle, and  by  and  by  the  church  is  as  light  as 
day.  Each  one  has  done  his  part,  and  the 
church  is  blazing  with  light. 

Jesus  once  said,  "  Ye  are  the  light  of  the 
world."  This  is  a  dark  world.  There  is 
much  that  is  evil  and  wrong  in  it.     But  if  we 


92  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

each  let  our  little  light  shine  it  will  not  be 
long  before  it  is  all  bright. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  smoky  lamp  ?  I  have 
seen  lamps  that  scarcely  gave  any  light  at 
all,  and  when  we  came  to  examine  them,  we 
found  that  something  had  gotten  into  the 
wick,  or  the  air-chamber  of  the  lamp,  and  was 
stifling  it.  The  lamp  has  to  be  clean  before 
it  can  send  out  a  bright,  clear  flame. 

There  are  some  of  us  just  like  that  smoky 
lamp.  We  ought  to  be  giving  out  a  bright 
and  beautiful  light,  and  instead  of  that  it  is 
the  poorest,  dimmest  kind  of  a  flame.  Some- 
thing has  come  into  our  lives  that  is  spoiling 
the  light.  Sometimes  it  is  bad  company. 
Sometimes  it  is  a  He  we  have  told,  or  some 
wrong  we  have  done  somebody  else.  No 
lamp  can  give  a  good  light  unless  the  wick 
is  clear,  and  no  life  can  shine  brightly  unless 
the  heart  is  pure. 

There  is  a  village  on  the  Eastern  Shore,  a 
very  little  village,  too  small  to  have  any 
street  lamps,  but  the  streets  are  so  bright  at 
night  that  no  one  ever  stumbles.  And  it  is 
so  easy  too.  Every  w^oman  along  the  main 
street  of  the  village,  when  night  comes,  puts 
a  light  in  her  window  so  that  it  will  shine  out 
on  the  road,  and  it  makes  the  whole  village 
light. 


Lamps  93 

Each  one  of  us  has  a  little  part  of  the  world 
that  has  been  assigned  to  us  to  play  in,  and 
work  in  and  live  in.  If  we  all  keep  our  lights 
bright  and  shining,  the  way  will  be  bright 
for  others  when  they  pass  by. 

When  the  old  Simeon  took  the  child  Jesus 
in  his  arms,  he  said  He  had  come  to  be  a 
Light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  and  the  glory 
of  His  people  Israel.  So  God  wants  us  to  be 
lights  in  our  homes,  and  in  school  and  wher- 
ever we  are. 


XXIII 
Love  Your  Enemies 

'*  I  say  unto  you,  love  your  enemies,  do  good  to 
them  which  hate  you." — Luke  vi.  27. 

Our  papers  are  all  filled  these  days  with 
news  of  the  great  war  in  Europe.  They 
tell  us  that  the  Germans  hate  the  English, 
and  the  English  hate  the  Turks,  and  the 
Turks  hate  the  Italians,  and  the  Italians 
hate  the  Austrians,  and  the  Austrians  hate 
the  Russians.  Everybody  hates  somebody 
else,  and  so  we  have  this  dreadful  war,  for 
war  teaches  men  to  hate  their  enemies. 
Jesus  taught  us  to  love  our  enemies.  He 
was  always  telling  us  to  do  something  that 
is  hard.  It  is  not  hard  to  love  your  parents, 
and  your  friends  and  those  who  love  you. 
You  can't  help  loving  them.  But  it  is  not 
so  easy  to  love  those  who  hate  you.  Jesus 
loved  His  enemies.  He  loved  Judas.  He 
prayed  for  the  men  who  crucified  Him,  and 
then  He  died  to  save  them  from  their  sins. 
And  He  told  us  that  we  ought  to  love  our 
enemies.  If  people  would  only  love  their 
enemies,  there  would  be  no  more  war. 
94 


Love  Your  Enemies  95 

There  are  several  reasons  why  we  ought 
to  try  to  love  our  enemies.  Here  is  one.  If 
we  love  them,  they  will  not  be  enemies  very 
long,  but  friends. 

Paul  said,  "If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed 
him,  if  he  thirst  give  him  drink,  for  in  so 
doing  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his 
head."  In  war  time,  when  an  army  wished 
to  conquer  a  city  and  make  it  impossible  for 
it  to  be  an  enemy  any  longer,  they  set  it  on 
fire.  They  put  coals  of  fire  on  it  and  burned 
it  up.  That  was  a  sure  way  to  overcome  it. 
So  Paul  tells  us  if  we  want  to  conquer  our 
enemies,  the  best  way  is  to  do  good  to  them. 
It  will  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  be  our 
enemies  any  longer. 

One  of  our  papers  told  the  story  of  an 
Englishman  and  a  German,  who  had  both 
been  severely  wounded  in  one  of  the  battles 
in  Northern  France.  They  lay  very  near  to- 
gether in  the  trench.  One  of  them  had 
some  water  in  his  canteen,  and  the  other 
had  none,  so  the  one  who  had  the  water 
crawled  over  and  shared  it  with  his  suffer- 
ing enemy.  And  then  they  began  to  love 
each  other,  and  when  they  loved  one  another, 
they  couldn't  be  enemies  any  longer. 

The  surest  way  to  conquer  an  enemy  is 
not  to  fight  him,  but  to  love  him. 


96  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Another  reason  we  ought  to  love  our 
enemies  is  because  it  brings  out  the  very- 
best  that  is  in  us.  If  you  had  a  Httle  garden, 
what  would  you  do  with  it  ?  You  would 
plant  flower  or  vegetable  seeds  there,  and 
raise  something  that  would  be  pretty  and 
useful.  You  would  not  plant  in  that  garden 
the  seeds  of  weeds  and  poisonous  plants 
that  would  be  useless  and  hurtful.  In  the 
same  way  Jesus  tells  us  that  in  the  garden 
of  the  heart  we  must  be  sure  to  plant  only- 
good  seeds,  seeds  of  love  and  kindness.  We 
must  not  allow  a  single  plant  of  hate  to  grow 
there,  even  hate  for  our  enemies. 

But  there  is  a  greater  reason  still  for  loving 
our  enemies,  and  that  is  because  Jesus  com- 
manded us  to  do  it. 

Long  ago  there  was  a  negro  slave  in  the 
West  Indies  who  had  been  converted  and 
become  a  Christian.  He  was  so  useful  to 
his  master  that  he  made  him  overseer  of  the 
plantation.  One  day  the  planter  was  going 
to  buy  some  new  slaves  from  a  ship  that  had 
just  landed  and  he  took  the  overseer  to  help 
him  select  them.  After  looking  about  a 
little  the  overseer  found  a  poor,  decrepit 
old  man  and  asked  his  master  to  purchase 
him.  The  planter  laughed  at  the  idea. 
What  was  such  a  poor  old  man  good  for? 


Love  Your  Enemies  97 

But  the  overseer  begged  so  hard  that  the 
owner  of  the  ship  offered  to  throw  the  old  man 
in,  if  they  would  buy  a  certain  number  of  other 
slaves,  and  the  master  agreed  to  take  him. 

On  the  way  home  the  overseer  was  very 
careful  of  the  poor,  broken  down  old  man. 
When  they  reached  home  he  took  him  to 
his  own  hut,  and  laid  him  on  his  own  bed, 
and  gave  him  the  best  food  that  he  had  and 
treated  him  like  a  king.  The  planter  was 
surprised  that  he  should  show  so  much 
kindness  to  the  old  African,  and  said  to 
him,  "  Is  that  old  man  your  father,  that 
you  take  such  good  care  of  him  ? "  **  No, 
massa,  he  no  my  father."  **  Perhaps  he  is 
your  brother  ? "  *'  No,  massa,  he  no  my 
brudder."  "  Then  he  must  be  your  uncle, 
or  some  old  friend?"  "No,  massa,  he  no 
kin  to  me  at  all."  "Then  why  show  so 
much  kindness  to  him  ?  "  "  Massa,  he  my 
old  enemy.  He  the  man  that  took  me  from 
my  house,  and  sold  me  to  the  trader.  My 
Bible  tell  me  to  love  my  enemy ;  when  he 
hungry,  feed  him  ;  when  he  thirsty,  give  him 
drink.     So  I  do  what  my  Bible  tell  me." 

Wouldn't  it  be  a  fine  thing  if  we  could  all 
try  to  do  what  our  Bibles  say,  as  this  slave 
did  ?  There  would  be  no  more  war  or  trou- 
ble, but  all  w^ould  be  peace  and  happiness. 


XXIV 

God's  Jewels 

**  And   they  shall    be  mine,  saith  the  Lord,  in  that  day 
when  I  make  up  my  jewels." — Malachi  iii.  17. 

In  a  jeweler's  window  there  is  a  litde  color- 
less stone,  no  bigger  than  your  finger  nail, 
and  the  price  is  one  thousand  dollars.  That 
little  stone  that  takes  so  much  money  to  buy, 
is  a  jewel.  Jewels  are  the  most  costly  things 
in  the  world  for  sale.  Sometimes  when 
parents  wish  to  speak  of  their  children  they 
call  them  their  jewels,  because  they  are  so 
precious. 

There  was  a  Roman  mother  long  ago 
named  Cornelia.  One  of  her  neighbors  came 
in  for  a  call  one  day  and  asked  to  see  her 
jewels.  Cornelia  called  her  two  boys  and 
said,  "  These  are  my  jewels." 

In  our  text  this  morning,  God  speaks  of 
good  people  as  His  jewels.  He  values  them 
more  highly  than  anything  else  that  He  has 
in  the  whole  world. 

There  are  several  facts  about  jewels  that 
we  must  try  to  remember. 
98 


God's  Jewels  gg 

'First,  they  are  very  costly.  There  is  a 
diamond  in  the  crown  of  the  Czar  of  Russia, 
called  the  Orloff  diamond,  that  is  worth  many 
millions,  and  it  has  a  very  interesting  history. 
Long  ago  it  was  the  eye  of  an  idol  in  India. 
There  was  a  Frenchman  who  saw  it  there, 
and  made  up  his  mind  that  he  was  going  to 
get  it.  So  he  made  a  piece  of  glass  that 
looked  just  like  it,  and  one  night  he  got  into 
the  temple,  and  took  out  the  diamond  and 
put  the  glass  in  its  place  and  ran  away. 
After  a  little  while  he  began  to  be  afraid  to 
carry  such  a  valuable  treasure  in  his  pocket, 
so  he  sold  it  to  a  sea  captain  for  ten  thousand 
dollars.  The  captain  took  it  to  Europe,  and 
sold  it  to  a  merchant  for  one  hundred  thou- 
sand. After  being  bought  a  number  of  times 
more,  it  was  purchased  by  Count  Orloff,  for 
Empress  Catherine  of  Russia,  for  more  than 
half  a  million  dollars.  The  Czar  values  that 
diamond  because  it  cost  so  much. 

God  calls  us  His  jewels,  because  we  cost 
Him  so  much.  He  paid  far  more  for  us 
than  the  Russian  Empress  paid  for  the  Orloff 
diamond.  He  gave  His  Son  for  us.  It  is 
no  wonder  that  He  calls  us  His  jewels. 

Some  jewels  are  shams.  They  make  dia- 
monds out  of  paste  so  skillfully  that  they  look 
just  like  the  real  thing.     They  seem  like  dia- 


lOO  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

monds,  but  they  are  worthless,  and  if  you 
take  one  of  them  to  a  jeweler  he  will  tell  you 
at  once  that  it  is  paste. 

There  are  some  people  like  that.  When  we 
first  see  them  they  seem  genuine  and  good, 
but  after  we  have  come  to  know  them  better 
we  find  out  that  they  are  shams ;  insincere, 
and  untruthful  and  wicked.  We  cannot  al- 
ways tell  a  sham  when  we  see  one,  but  God 
can.     No  one  can  deceive  Him. 

Then  there  are  some  jewels  that  have  flaws 
in  them.  Once  I  saw  two  diamonds.  They 
were  the  same  size  and  looked  just  alike  to 
me,  but  I  was  told  that  one  was  far  more 
valuable  than  the  other.  I  said,  *•  How  is 
that  ?  '*  The  man  who  was  showing  them  to 
me  handed  me  a  magnifying  glass  and  I 
looked  through  it  and  saw  that  there  was  a 
tiny  flaw  in  one  of  them,  so  small  that  I  could 
not  have  seen  it  without  the  glass.  That  lit- 
tle flaw  made  a  great  difference  in  the  value 
of  the  diamond. 

Sometimes  we  see  boys  and  girls  who  seem 
to  be  so  fine  and  so  good,  and  then  all  at  once 
we  discover  that  they  are  not  quite  truthful, 
or  not  quite  honest,  or  they  are  lazy,  or  there 
is  something  else  that  mars  them.  These 
jewels  are  perfect  all  but  the  flaws.  God 
wants  His  jewels  to  be  without  flaws. 


God's  Jewels  loi 

When  jewels  come  out  of  the  ground  they 
are  often  coarse  and  rough,  and  before  they 
can  be  sold  they  must  be  polished.  They 
must  be  ground,  and  cut  and  rubbed.  This 
is  hard  for  the  jewels,  but  it  has  to  be  done 
if  they  are  to  be  perfect. 

God's  jewels  need  to  be  polished,  too. 
That  is  why  very  often  God  sends  us  trouble, 
and  suffering  and  pain.  It  is  to  make  us 
perfect.  The  writer  of  the  Hebrews  spoke  of 
Jesus  being  made  perfect  through  sufferings. 
That  is  the  way  God  deals  with  us.  He 
sends  us  suffering  to  make  us  perfect,  as  the 
diamond  is  made  beautiful  and  perfect 
through  polishing. 


XXV 

Self-Sacrificc 

"  And  Cain  brought  an  offering  unto  the  Lord." — 
Genesis  iv.  3. 

We  often  hear  the  word  "  sacrifice  "  and 
we  ought  to  know  just  what  it  means.  A 
sacrifice  is  something  that  we  give  up  for 
God  or  for  some  one  else.  God  expects  us 
to  make  sacrifices  for  Him.  He  has  made 
great  sacrifices  for  us,  and  He  has  the  right 
to  expect  that  we  shall  do  the  same  for  Him. 
The  only  sacrifices  that  God  cares  about  are 
those  that  cost  us  something.  Do  you  know 
why  Cain  killed  Abel?  It  was  because  of 
envy.  One  day  both  of  these  young  men 
came  to  offer  a  sacrifice  to  God.  Abel  loved 
the  Lord  and  took  the  very  best  lamb  that 
he  could  find  in  his  flock  and  gave  it  to  God. 
He  perhaps  said,  as  he  gave  it,  **  There  isn't 
anything  that  I  have  that  is  too  good  for  the 
Lord,  and  I  will  give  Him  the  very  best  that 
I  have." 

But  Cain  was  different.  He  didn't  love 
the  Lord  as  Abel  did.  When  it  came  time  to 
make  the  sacrifice  he  said,  '*  I  suppose  I  must 
102 


Self-Sacrifice  103 

give  the  Lord  something,  but  almost  any- 
thing will  do  for  Him."  So  he  took  some 
leaves  and  grass  that  did  not  cost  him  any- 
thing and  offered  that  to  God. 

You  all  know  what  the  Lord  did.  There 
was  only  one  thing  that  He  could  do.  He 
accepted  Abel's  sacrifice  and  thanked  him, 
but  Cain's  He  would  not  accept.  God  will 
not  accept  a  sacrifice  from  any  of  us  that 
costs  us  nothing.  That  made  Cain  very 
angry.  He  couldn't  kill  God,  so  he  killed 
Abel,  his  brother. 

There  is  a  story  very  much  like  this  over 
in  the  New  Testament,  when  Jesus  went  into 
the  temple  one  day  and  stood  by  the  collec- 
tion box  to  see  what  the  people  were  giving. 
In  those  days  they  didn't  pass  around  the 
collection  plates  as  we  do  now.  They  put  a 
big  box  in  the  corner  of  the  temple,  with  a 
slit  in  the  lid  and  the  people  marched  up  and 
put  their  money  in  the  slit.  You  know  now 
there  are  some  people,  when  the  collection 
plate  is  passed,  who  do  not  want  others  to 
see  what  they  are  giving.  They  have  plenty 
of  money  for  pleasure  and  other  things,  but 
when  Sunday  comes  they  only  have  a  penny 
or  a  nickel  for  the  Lord.  So  they  hide  it  in 
their  hands  and  drop  it  on  the  plate  softly  so 
no  one  will  be  able  to  see  it. 


104  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

In  the  temple,  the  box  was  fixed  so  they 
could  not  do  that.  They  had  to  go  up  and 
drop  it  into  that  slot  in  the  top,  and  every- 
body who  was  there  could  see  just  what  they 
gave. 

That  day  as  Jesus  and  the  disciples  stood 
there,  along  came  a  number  of  old  rich 
Pharisees.  They  went  up  there  before  every 
one,  and  each  put  in  a  big  silver  coin,  after 
holding  it  up  so  every  one  could  see  what 
they  were  giving,  and  making  it  jingle  and 
rattle  in  the  box.  What  they  gave  didn't  cost 
them  anything.  They  had  plenty  more  where 
that  came  from.  They  didn't  give  the  Lord 
any  more  than  they  would  give  a  beggar. 

Just  then  there  came  in  a  poor  widow. 
She  had  only  two  mites,  less  than  half  a 
penny  it  was,  but  it  was  everything  that  she 
had  in  the  world,  and  she  put  it  all  in.  I 
suspect  that  she  had  to  go  without  her  supper 
and  her  breakfast  because  she  gave  that. 
And  when  the  Lord  saw  her  He  said,  "  She 
has  given  more  than  all  the  rest."  Her 
sacrifice  was  the  one  He  loved  because  it 
cost  her  so  much. 

God  always  measures  our  gifts  not  by  what 
we  give  but  by  what  we  have  left  after  we 
give.  He  doesn't  care  for  any  gift  unless  it 
costs  us  something.     That  is  a  real  sacrifice. 


XXVI 

Sympathy 

"  Take  My  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me,  for  My  yoke 
is  easy." — Matthew  xi.  29-30. 

What  is  a  yoke,  and  what  has  a  yoke  to 
do  with  sympathy  ?  That  is  what  I  am  go- 
ing to  try  to  tell  you  about  to-day.  A  yoke 
is  a  wooden  frame,  used  to  couple  oxen  to- 
gether so  that  they  can  pull  big  loads.  I 
used  to  think  that  a  yoke  was  a  heavy 
burden.  People  say,  **  It  is  a  good  thing  to 
bear  the  yoke  in  your  youth,"  as  though  it  is 
something  very  hard  and  difficult.  But  a 
yoke  isn't  a  burden  at  all.  It  is  a  help.  It 
is  the  yoke  that  makes  it  possible  for  the 
oxen  to  help  one  another,  and  to  share  each 
other's  loads.  If  it  were  not  for  the  yoke 
they  would  have  a  hard  time  to  draw  the 
heavy  wagon.  It  is  the  yoke  that  makes  it 
easy. 

Perhaps  this  will  make  it  plainer  for  us  to 
understand  what  Jesus  meant  when  He  said, 
"Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  for  My  yoke  is 
easy."  Jesus  wants  you  to  let  Him  help  you 
carry  your  load,  just  as  one  of  those  oxen 
105 


io6  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

helps  the  other.  If  you  have  a  big  load 
share  it  with  Him.  He  will  take  the  other 
side  and  it  will  be  easier  for  you.  Now  the 
yoke  stands  for  sympathy.  A  boy  once  was 
asked  what  sympathy  is.  He  said,  *'  Sym- 
pathy is  a  kind  of  going  halves  with  a  fellow." 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  and  went  to 
school  in  the  country,  some  of  the  boys  used 
to  go  every  day  and  bring  a  bucket  of  water 
from  the  spring,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away.  If  one  boy  tried  to  carry  that  bucket 
alone  it  would  be  very  heavy.  But  we  used 
to  take  a  long  stick,  and  hang  the  pail  on  the 
middle  of  it  and  each  boy  would  take  an 
end,  and  the  pail  was  very  Hght. 

We  can  share  with  others  not  only  the 
loads  that  we  carry  with  our  hands,  but  our 
troubles.  Did  you  ever  have  a  trouble  that 
worried  you  very  much,  and  you  went  and 
told  it  to  your  mother  or  your  father?  It 
didn't  seem  half  so  heavy  after  that.  That  is 
because  they  were  carrying  part  of  it  for  you. 
Now  that  is  what  Jesus  wants  us  all  to  do. 
If  we  have  troubles,  let  us  tell  them  to  Him 
and  let  Him  help  us  carry  them. 
/  I  read  this  week  a  story  of  the  war  be- 
tween the  French  and  the  Germans  forty 
years  ago.  The  French  army  was  defeated 
and  driven  back  towards  Paris.     There  was 


Sympathy  1 07 

not  much  to  eat,  and  there  were  many  times 
when  the  soldiers  had  to  go  hungry.  In  the 
army  was  a  young  duke  who  had  enlisted  as 
a  private  soldier.  One  day  the  duke  was 
eating  a  piece  of  stale  bread,  which  was  all 
they  had,  and  thinking  of  the  splendid  din- 
ners they  had  had  before  the  war  began. 
He  couldn't  eat  the  bread  so  he  threw  it  in 
the  road.  At  once  another  soldier  snatched 
that  bread  from  the  dirt  and  ate  it  greedily. 
The  duke  said  to  him,  "  Excuse  me  for  throw- 
ing that  bread  away.  I  did  not  know  that 
any  one  could  be  as  hungry  as  you  are." 
The  soldier  replied  that  he  had  been  hungry 
all  his  life.  He  had  been  an  orphan  who 
lived  on  the  streets  ;  then  he  had  been  ap- 
prenticed to  a  master  who  almost  starved 
him  ;  he  had  learned  a  trade  that  did  not  pay 
him  and  now  he  was  a  soldier  in  a  defeated 
army.  He  had  always  had  a  great  appetite, 
though  he  had  never  had  enough  to  eat  once 
in  his  life. 

Then  said  the  duke,  "You  and  I  will  go 
shares  in  the  future.  I  have  a  very  small 
appetite,  and  I  will  give  you  part  of  my  ra- 
tions." So  when  the  evening  meal  came, 
Jacques,  the  hungry  soldier,  had  part  of  the 
duke's  supper,  and  they  lay  down  to  sleep 
side  by  side. 


lo8  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

At  midnight  the  watch  came  around  to 
arouse  those  who  were  to  go  on  sentry  duty. 
Jacques  was  awake.  It  was  not  his  turn  to 
go.  It  was  the  duke's  turn.  But  the  duke 
was  asleep.  Jacques  said,  '*  It  is  a  shame  to 
wake  him.  He  is  sleeping  so  soundly.  Til 
go  in  his  place."  So  he  went.  That  night 
the  Germans  made  an  attack  and  Jacques 
was  shot  at  his  post. 

Long  after  the  war  was  over,  the  duke  was 
going  home  from  a  banquet  with  a  friend, 
when  he  suddenly  stopped  and  picked  a  piece 
of  bread  out  of  the  street,  wiped  the  mud  off 
it,  and  laid  it  very  gently  on  the  curbstone. 
As  he  did  so  he  said  to  his  friend,  "  I  am  do- 
'  ing  this  in  memory  of  a  friend  who  gave  his 
life  for  me." 

Sympathy  is  helping  others  bear  their 
load. 


XXVII 

The  Shepherd  Boy  Who  Became  King 

**  He  raised  up  David  to  be  their  king." — Acts  xiii.  22. 

Boys  and  girls  all  love  books  that  have 
plenty  of  life  in  them.  There  are  no  more 
thrilling  stories  in  the  world  than  those  we 
find  in  the  Bible.  The  life  of  David  is  one  of 
the  finest  that  was  ever  written.  Here  was 
a  shepherd  boy  who  was  brought  home  from 
the  fields  to  be  anointed  king.  Then  he 
killed  a  lion  and  a  bear.  Next  he  was  sent 
for  to  play  his  harp  before  the  king.  After 
that  we  see  him  killing  a  big  giant  with  his 
sling  and  a  stone,  and  then  he  marries  the 
daughter  of  the  king,  and  becomes  king  him- 
self. 

Did  you  ever  read  in  all  your  story  books 
a  more  wonderful  tale  than  this,  and  the  best 
part  of  it  is  that  it  is  all  true. 

We  always  think  of  David  as  the  shepherd 
who  became  king.  God  made  him  king,  but 
He  would  not  have  done  it  if  David  had  not 
been  the  right  sort  of  a  boy.  There  were 
some  things  about  the  boy  David  that  it 
109 


no  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

would  be  well  for  us  all  to  remember  and  try 
to  imitate. 

First  he  was  a  thoughtful  boy.  While  he 
was  a  shepherd  lad  he  was  thinking  and 
planning  for  the  future,  and  when  that  fu- 
ture came  he  was  ready  for  it.  So  many 
of  us  when  we  have  done  wrong  say,  "  I 
didn't  think."  That  is  just  the  trouble.  We 
do  not  think  enough.  God  wants  us  to 
think.  He  expects  us  to  use  our  minds  to 
help  us  to  do  right,  and  to  prevent  us  from 
doing  wrong. 

The  second  fact  we  notice  about  David  was 
his  industry.  He  worked  hard.  While  he 
was  a  boy  tending  the  sheep  on  the  hillside, 
he  did  not  have  much  to  do,  just  watch  a  few 
sheep  all  day.  Some  boys  would  have  idled 
away  the  time  and  have  become  loafers.  But 
David  worked  every  spare  moment.  It  was 
while  he  was  tending  the  sheep  that  he  learned 
to  play  the  harp  better  than  any  one  else  in  the 
whole  land.  It  was  there  that  he  wrote  some 
of  those  lovely  poems  which  we  have  in  the 
book  of  Psalms.  There,  too,  he  trained  him- 
self to  shoot  with  the  sling  so  that  he  was  able 
to  kill  the  giant  Goliath.  How  much  he  did 
with  his  idle  minlites  !  If  we  would  only  learn 
to  put  in  our  spare  moments  doing  something 
that  was  useful,  we,  too,  could  do  great  things. 


The  Shepherd  Boy  Who  Became  King  1 1 1 

Sometimes  we  see  slot  machines,  that  will 
not  work  unless  we  put  in  a  penny,  and  then 
they  will  work  a  second  or  two  and  stop 
till  you  put  in  another  penny.  There  are 
some  boys  and  girls  like  a  slot  machine. 
They  do  not  like  to  work  unless  you  give 
them  something,  and  then  they  want  to  stop 
very  soon  till  they  are  paid  again.  We  ought 
to  work  not  for  what  we  can  get  out  of  it, 
but  for  the  good  that  the  work  does. 

^The  third  fact  about  David  was  his  great 
patience.  He  knew  how  to  wait.  He  was 
anointed  king,  and  then  it  was  many  years 
before  he  became  king.  But  all  those  years 
he  was  very  patient.  He  knew  that  the  best 
things  in  hfe  come  very  slowly. 

Not  far  from  here  there  is  a  great  oak  tree. 
Years  ago  when  General  Washington  was  liv- 
ing in  this  state,  that  oak  tree  was  there. 
Long,  long  ago,  hundreds  of  years  perhaps,  a 
little  acorn  fell  to  the  ground,  and  after  a 
while  there  was  a  tiny  shoot  that  appeared 
and  began  to  grow.  How  slow  it  was  !  It 
grew  only  a  very  few  inches  in  a  year,  and  it 
took  many,  many  long  years  for  it  to  become  a 
big  tree.  But  when  at  last  it  was  grown,  it 
was  the  finest  tree  in  the  forest,  and  will  stand 
there  for  centuries.  A  mushroom  will  grow 
up  in  a  night,  but  it  takes  an  oak  a  century 


112  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

to  develop.  If  we  are  going  to  do  great 
things  as  David  did  we  must  be  patient. 

But  the  best  thing  of  all  about  David  was 
his  gentleness.  He  said  on  one  occasion, 
*'  Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great."  He 
was  gentle  to  his  brothers  and  to  his  friends 
and  to  his  enemies,  and  he  was  humble  and 
obedient  to  his  God. 

God  may  not  make  us  kings,  but  if  we  will 
try  to  imitate  these  traits  of  David's,  that  I 
have  mentioned,  I  know  that  He  will  bless  us. 


XXVIII 

Keeping  the  Thoughts  Pure 

"  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence  ;  for  out  of  it  are  the 
issues  of  life." — Proverbs  iv.  23. 

A  FEW  miles  out  from  one  of  our  big  cities 
up  in  the  hills  is  a  small  lake.  That  lake  is 
always  most  carefully  watched  and  guarded. 
No  boats  are  allowed  upon  it.  Fishing  is  not 
permitted.  Animals  cannot  get  near  to  it. 
There  is  a  man  living  not  far  away  who  does 
nothing  but  watch  the  lake,  and  see  that 
nothing  gets  into  it.  If  you  were  to  ask  that 
man  why  he  is  so  carefully  guarding  the 
water,  he  would  tell  you  that  at  one  end  of  the 
lake  there  is  a  great  pipe,  that  carries  the 
water  down  to  the  city,  where  thousands  of 
people  drink  it  every  day.  That  is  why  the 
lake  is  kept  day  and  night.  It  is  drinking 
water,  that  brings  life  to  the  city,  and  nothing 
impure  or  poisonous  must  be  allowed  to  get 
into  it. 

Now  this  is  what  Solomon  meant  by  this 
verse,  "  Keep  thine  heart  with  all  diligence, 
for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life."  We  are 
"3 


1 14  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

to  watch  everything-  that  goes  into  our  hearts 
just  as  faithfully  and  as  carefully  as  the  man 
at  the  lake,  and  see  that  nothing  poisonous 
or  impure  enters  there. 

When  we  were  very  small  children  we 
learned  that  there  are  some  things  in  the 
world  that  are  poisonous  and  will  hurt  us. 
When  I  was  a  little  boy  I  was  out  in  the  yard 
one  day  and  saw  a  pretty  little  fly  buzzing 
around  a  flower.  Pretty  soon  he  settled  down 
on  the  flower,  and  I  put  out  my  hand  and 
took  him.  Then  all  at  once  I  felt  a  sharp 
pain  in  my  hand  and  dropped  him  and  ran 
into  the  house.  My  mother  told  me  that  a 
bee  had  stung  me  and  put  something  on  it  to 
draw  out  the  poison.  That  is  one  kind  of 
poison. 

Then  there  is  a  vine  that  grows  along  the 
fences  in  the  country  that  it  is  not  well  to 
touch.  If  you  do  touch  it,  very  likely  in  a 
few  days  your  hands  will  begin  to  swell  and 
you  will  have  trouble.  That  is  another  kind 
of  poison. 

We  all  remember,  too,  when  we  were  very 
young,  being  told  that  there  were  some  bot- 
tles in  the  medicine  closet  at  home,  that  it 
would  not  do  to  taste,  because  they  were 
poison  and  would  hurt  us. 

So  we  learned  that  there  are  some  things 


Keeping  the  Thoughts  Pure        1 15 

in  the  world  that  we  must  never  take  into 
our  hands,  and  there  are  some  things  that 
we  must  not  touch,  and  there  are  other  things 
that  we  must  never  take  into  our  mouths, 
because  they  are  poison. 

But  there  is  something  else  that  it  is  just 
as  important  to  remember.  There  are  also 
some  things  that  we  must  never  take  into 
our  minds.  A  filthy  book  or  story,  or  an 
obscene  picture,  will  poison  the  mind  just  as 
a  swallow  of  arsenic  will  poison  the  body. 
Sometimes  we  see  boys  whose  minds  have 
been  poisoned  by  the  evil  things  they  have 
taken  into  them.  A  poisoned  mind  is  worse 
than  a  poisoned  body.  That  is  why  we  are 
told  to  keep  our  hearts  with  all  diligence. 

We  can  keep  our  hearts  by  never  allowing 
anything  to  come  into  them  that  is  impure 
and  unclean.  And  if  evil  thoughts  do  come 
in,  we  can  drive  them  out.  We  can't  help 
them  from  coming  in  sometimes,  but  we  can 
keep  them  from  staying  in. 

And  then  we  can  fill  our  minds  with  good 
and  pure  thoughts  by  reading  good  books 
and  associating  with  pure  companions  and 
looking  at  clean  pictures.  If  we  fill  our 
thoughts  with  the  things  that  are  pure  and 
holy  there  will  be  no  room  for  the  evil 
thoughts  to  come  in. 


Il6  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

We  ought  always  to  try  hard  to  keep  our 
thoughts  pure,  for  there  cannot  be  a  strong 
character  unless  first  there  is  a  clean  heart. 

You  have  all  seen  a  moth  come  flying  in 
at  the  window  in  the  evening,  go  straight  for 
the  lamp,  and  fly  right  through  the  flame. 
He  gets  his  wings  scorched,  and  as  he  lies 
on  the  table  he  begins  to  think.  It  would 
have  been  a  great  deal  better  for  him  if  he 
had  done  his  thinking  before  he  went  into  the 
flame. 

That  is  the  great  trouble  with  so  many 
boys  and  girls.  When  their  minds  have 
been  poisoned  by  evil  then  they  begin  to 
think.  It  would  be  better  to  think  before- 
hand, and  keep  the  poison  out.  Keep  thy 
heart  with  all  diligence. 


XXIX 

Covetousness 

«*  Take  heed  and  beware  of  covetousness.'* 
— Luke  xii.  15. 

Covetousness  is  wanting  something  that 
belongs  to  somebody  else.  There  are  some 
sins  that  trouble  men  and  women,  and  there 
are  others  that  boys  and  girls  have  to  watch 
out  for,  but  there  is  one  sin  that  we  all  need 
to  guard  ourselves  against. 

It  seems  like  a  very  little  sin,  and  that  is 
what  makes  it  so  dangerous.  You  know 
how  little  a  match  is,  not  one-half  as  big  as 
your  little  finger,  and  when  you  strike  the 
match  there  is  a  tiny  flame  no  larger  than 
your  thumb  nail,  but  that  little  match-flame 
can  kindle  a  fire  that  will  consume  a  big 
house  if  we  let  it  go. 

That  is  the  way  with  covetousness.  It 
seems  like  a  small  sin,  but  it  starts  big  sins, 
and  that  is  why  Jesus  told  us  to  especially 
beware  of  it  at  all  times. 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  the  story  of  a  covet- 
ous man,  a  story  written  by  a  great  Russian 
named  Tolstoi. 

117 


Ii8  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

There  was  once  a  poor  Russian  named 
Pakhom.  He  was  very  poor,  like  most  of 
the  Russians,  but  he  had  a  great  desire  to 
have  a  piece  of  land  for  his  own.  What 
great  things  he  could  do  if  he  just  had  a 
little  farm !  One  day  the  rich  woman  who 
owned  most  of  the  village  sold  her  land.  He 
went  to  her  and  told  her  that  he  would  like 
to  have  fifty  acres.  He  would  pay  her  half 
at  once,  and  the  rest  in  two  years.  So  she 
sold  him  the  fifty  acres,  and  at  the  end  of  two 
years  he  had  it  all  paid  for.  But  he  wasn't 
happy.  He  kept  thinking  and  thinking  how 
much  more  he  could  do  if  he  only  had  twice 
as  much  land.  One  day  he  heard  that  up 
along  the  Volga  River  there  was  cheaper 
land,  and  that  if  he  sold  what  he  had,  he 
could  buy  over  one  hundred  acres  there.  So 
he  moved  to  the  Volga,  and  now  he  had  one 
hundred  and  thirty  acres.  You  would  have 
thought  that  he  would  have  been  very  happy 
then  with  all  that  land,  but  he  was  not  happy. 
He  wanted  more  land.  One  day  there  came 
along  a  traveller  who  told  him  that  in  one  of 
the  provinces,  three  hundred  miles  away,  for 
one  thousand  roubles  he  could  get  just  as 
much  land  as  he  wanted.  Now  the  man  had 
a  fine  farm  and  a  happy  home,  but  all  the 
time  he  was  thinking  how  grand  it  would  be 


Covetousness  119 

to  have  all  the  land  that  he  wanted.  So  he 
sold  his  farm  for  one  thousand  roubles  and 
went  three  hundred  miles  to  see  the  governor 
of  that  province  about  it.  It  was  true.  He 
was  told  that  for  one  thousand  roubles  he 
could  have  all  the  land  that  he  could  walk 
around  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 

The  next  morning  he  started  at  sunrise  and 
walked  as  fast  as  he  could.  He  saw  over 
there  a  fine  forest,  and  said  to  himself,  "  I'll 
walk  around  that  and  it  will  be  mine."  Then 
he  saw  a  splendid  lake,  and  said,  **  I'll  make 
that  mine  too."  So  he  went  on  and  on. 
All  at  once  he  looked  up  and  the  sun  was 
long  past  noon.  He  had  to  get  back  by- 
sundown  or  he  would  lose  it  all.  So  he 
walked  as  fast  as  ever  he  could,  but  the  sun 
kept  on  going  down.  Then  he  began  to  run, 
faster  and  faster.  The  sun  was  almost  down. 
There  was  a  little  further  to  go  and  it 
would  all  be  his.  Just  then  he  felt  a  pain  in 
his  side,  he  had  been  running  so  fast.  At 
last,  just  as  the  sun  went  down  he  reached  the 
place  where  the  governor  was  waiting  for 
him.  Then  as  he  staggered  up  to  the  place, 
he  fell  down  dead.  He  had  won  all  the  land, 
but  had  killed  himself  trying  to  get  it. 

That  is  always  the  way  with  the  covetous 
man.     He  is  never  happy  no  matter  what  he 


120  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

gets,  and  he  never  has  anything  out  of  what 
he  gets  but  a  place  to  lie  down  and  die  in. 

There  is  something  that  is  far  better  than 
covetousness.  The  covetous  boy  is  he  who 
is  always  thinking  of  what  he  can  get  from 
other  people.  The  contented  and  happy  boy 
is  he  who  is  always  thinking  of  what  he  can 
give  to  other  people.  Do  not  think  so  much 
of  what  you  will  get,  but  think  more  of  what 
you  can  give.  That  is  the  secret  of  the  best 
riches  that  the  world  knows. 


XXX 

Growing 

"  And  Jesus  increased  in  wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favor 
with  God  and  man." — Luke  ii.  52. 

We  have  all  seen  a  tree  growing.  There 
are  three  directions  in  which  it  grows.  It 
becomes  taller  and  taller.  And  as  it  grows 
taller  its  roots  must  go  down  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  earth.  If  the  roots  did  not 
grow  the  first  big  storm  that  came  along 
would  blow  the  tree  over.  And  that  is  not 
all.  The  tree  grows  wider  and  wider,  so  that 
after  a  while  it  becomes  a  fine  shade-tree. 

There  are  three  ways,  too,  in  which  a  boy 
or  girl  grows.  Our  text  tells  us  that  Jesus 
grew  in  stature,  in  wisdom,  and  in  favor  with 
God.  These  are  the  three  directions  the 
growth  of  every  child  ought  to  take. 

First  we  must  grow  in  stature.  Most  of 
you  have  somewhere  at  home  a  little  mark  on 
the  wall,  which  shows  just  how  tall  you  were 
on  your  last  birthday,  and  when  the  next  one 
comes  you  will  stand  up  there  and  your 
father  will  make  a  mark  for  this  year  to 
121 


122  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

show  how  much  you  have  grown.  A  young 
friend  of  mine  once  told  me  that  he  did  not 
think  that  he  was  any  kind  of  a  boy,  if  he 
could  not  grow  an  inch  every  month.  That 
is  more  than  any  boy  can  grow,  but  we  ought 
to  be  growing  some  all  the  time. 

Bad  habits  keep  us  from  growing  and  bad 
company,  too.  We  ought  to  be  very  careful 
to  avoid  these  things,  for  our  business  when 
we  are  small  is  to  grow. 

Then  there  is  a  second  way  in  which  we 
must  grow.  We  must  grow  in  wisdom.  We 
have  not  only  a  body  but  also  a  mind.  It 
will  not  do  for  the  body  to  grow  stronger 
and  the  mind  to  stay  just  as  it  is.  A  man 
with  a  big  body  and  a  little  mind  is  a  very 
poor  sort  of  a  man. 

Once  I  was  walking  along  the  street  and  a 
man  came  up  to  speak  to  me.  He  was  a  big 
man,  bigger  and  taller  than  I  am,  and  he  had 
a  litde  piece  of  paper  in  his  hand.  He  held 
it  out  and  asked  me  to  read  it  to  him.  I  be- 
gan to  be  very  sorry  for  him,  for  I  thought 
that  maybe  he  was  blind.  But  when  I  looked 
I  saw  that  he  could  see  just  as  well  as  I 
could.  He  couldn't  read.  Long  ago  when 
that  man's  body  was  growing  bigger  and 
bigger,  and  he  ought  to  have  been  in  school 
improving  his  mind,  he  was  playing  truant, 


Growing  1^3 

and  idling  away  his  time.  He  thought  then 
that  he  was  having  a  very  good  time,  but 
now  he  is  a  big  man  and  lie  does  not  know 
as  much  as  some  of  the  smallest  children  in 
the  Sunday-school. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  dwarf  ?  He  is  a  man 
with  a  very  small  body.  But  there  are  mind- 
dwarfs,  too,  whose  minds  have  not  grown 
since  they  were  small  children. 

And  there  is  another  part  of  us  that  must 
grow,  too.  It  is  the  soul.  It  is  said  of  Jesus 
that  He  grew  in  favor  with  God.  That  means 
that  while  He  was  growing  taller,  and  His 
mind  was  being  improved  with  study  at  home 
and  in  school,  that  His  soul  was  getting  better 
and  bigger,  too.  The  soul  is  the  best  part  of 
us.  It  is  the  part  that  doesn't  die.  The  soul 
is  going  to  live  forever.  Therefore,  we  ought 
to  take  the  very  best  of  care  of  it  and  see  that 
it  is  growing  every  day  that  we  live.  It  is 
food  and  work  that  makes  the  body  grow ;  it 
is  study  that  makes  the  mind  grow,  and  it  is 
the  Bible,  and  prayer,  and  kindness,  and 
gentleness,  that  make  the  soul  grow. 

Not  long  ago  some  one  was  speaking  to 
me  about  a  man  that  had  a  *'  measly,  little 
soul.'*  Do  you  know  what  the  trouble  is 
with  that  man  ?  His  father  and  mother 
were  careful  to  see  that  his  body  grew  big 


124  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

and  strong.  And  they  sent  him  to  school 
and  college  that  his  mind  might  grow,  but 
they  never  thought  about  his  soul,  and  now 
people  say  of  him,  "  Oh,  he  has  such  a  little 
soul." 

I  told  you  of  the  little  marks  we  have 
somewhere  which  tell  how  much  taller  we 
have  grown  each  year.  Then  if  we  look  at 
the  school  books  we  have  studied,  we  know 
how  much  our  minds  have  grown.  Do  you 
know  that  God  has  a  place  where  He  is 
keeping  track  of  our  souls  ?  He  knows  how 
much  they  are  growing  too.  It  will  not  do 
just  to  grow  in  stature,  and  in  wisdom.  We 
must  grow  in  favor  with  God  also. 

We  need  good  bodies  and  strong  minds, 
and  above  all  we  want  big  souls. 


XXXI 

Let  Your  Light  Shine 

"Let  your  light  shine." — Matthew  v.  i6. 

One  of  our  papers  told  the  story  of  a  man 
who  for  forty  years,  had  kept  an  account  of 
the  sunshine.  He  had  a  little  book,  and  in 
that  book  he  had  a  record  of  every  day  of 
that  forty  years.  He  knew  how  many  hoursf 
of  each  day  the  sun  had  shone,  how  many  it 
was  cloudy,  and  how  many  it  rained. 

There  is  a  machine  that  keeps  account  of 
the  hours  of  sunshine.  It  is  a  very  interest- 
ing little  machine.  There  is  a  burning  glass 
that  turns  around  as  the  earth  moves.  Under- 
neath it  there  is  a  piece  of  paper,  and  when- 
ever the  sun  shines  through  that  glass  it 
makes  a  little  burnt  mark  on  the  paper. 
When  night  comes  they  take  out  that  piece 
of  paper  and  lay  it  away,  and  put  in  another 
for  the  next  day.  Day  after  day  that  little 
record  is  kept,  and  next  year  or  ten  years 
from  now,  they  can  turn  to  those  papers  and 
tell  just  how  much  the  sun  was  shining 
every  day. 

In  the  little  text  that  I  have  given  you  we 
125 


126  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

are  told  to  let  our  light  shine.  Let  me  try 
to  tell  you  what  is  meant  by  this  command. 
It  means  that  we  are  to  carry  light  and  sun- 
shine with  us  wherever  we  go. 

There  are  some  people  in  the  world  who 
are  just  naturally  sunny.  Wherever  they  go 
it  always  seems  brighter  and  pleasanter,  and 
there  are  others  who  are  always  gloomy. 
The  room  always  seems  a  little  darker  when 
they  come  in. 

Now  Jesus  tells  us  here  that  we  are  to  let 
our  light  shine.  We  are  to  try  to  make  it 
brighter  for  others  wherever  we  go.  Just  as 
that  machine  that  I  told  you  about  keeps  a 
record  of  the  sunshine  each  day,  so  Jesus  is 
keeping  an  account  of  the  number  of  hours 
each  day,  that  we  are  letting  our  light  shine. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  poor  woman  in  London 
who  was  informed  one  day  that  one  of  her 
relatives  had  died  and  left  her  a  sum  of  money, 
that  would  make  her  comfortable  the  rest  of 
her  days.  She  had  been  very  poor  all  her 
life.  There  had  been  plenty  of  days  when 
she  had  not  had  enough  to  eat.  What  do 
you  suppose  was  the  first  thing  she  thought 
about  ?  The  good  time  that  she  was  going 
to  have  with  all  that  money?  No,  her  first 
thought  was  of  the  good  that  she  could  do. 
She  went  and  found  another  woman  who  had 


Let  Your  Light  Shine  127 

to  work  hard  in  a  garret,  and  took  her  off  to 
the  country,  and  gave  her  a  month  of  rest  and 
brought  her  back  strong  and  well.  Then  she 
thought  of  something  else  that  she  could  do 
to  make  some  one  else  happy,  and  so  the 
days  went  by,  and  at  the  end  of  each  day 
the  recording  angel  in  heaven  put  away  the 
record  of  another  day  of  sunshine  for  her. 

People  used  to  think  that  a  gentleman  was 
one  of  noble  birth,  and  no  one  was  called  a 
gentleman  or  a  lady  unless  they  had  been 
born  in  the  nobility.  But  people  know  more 
than  that  now.  A  gentleman  or  a  lady  is  one 
of  gende  manners  and  life,  one  who  thinks 
not  of  self  but  of  others,  and  tries  to  let  his 
light  shine. 

When  a  girl  who  has  been  looking  forward 
to  vacation,  gives  it  up  that  she  may  stay  at 
home  and  help  her  tired  mother,  she  is 
letting  her  light  shine. 

When  a  boy  is  tempted  by  his  companions 
to  go  to  some  place,  or  to  do  something,  that 
he  knows  is  wrong  and  tells  them  that  he 
will  not  because  it  is  wrong,  he  is  letting  his 
light  shine. 

Every  day  God  puts  away  the  record  of 
the  day  for  every  boy  and  girl.  What  kind 
of  days  are  they,  days  of  sunshine  or  days  of 
gloom  ? 


XXXII 

What  I  Want  to  Do  and  What  I 
Ought  to  Do 

Sometimes  there  is  a  great  difference  be- 
tween what  we  want  to  do,  and  what  we  ought 
to  do.  They  used  to  say  that  bad  children 
did  what  they  wanted  to,  and  good  children 
did  what  they  ought  to. 

There  is  an  old  legend  about  the  Knights 
of  the  Cross,  who  lived  on  the  Island  of  Malta 
many  hundreds  of  years  ago.  There  was  a 
terrible  dragon  that  lived  on  that  island,  that 
killed  and  ate  the  children  and  the  women, 
and  of  whom  every  one  was  very  much  afraid. 
Many  of  the  soldiers  had  gone  out  and  tried 
to  kill  the  dragon,  but  none  of  them  ever  came 
back.  More  and  more  brave  men  went  to  try 
to  rid  the  island  of  the  monster  but  they 
w^ere  all  killed,  till  at  last  the  Master  of  the 
Knights  commanded  that  no  more  of  them 
were  to  fight  against  him.  There  was  no 
use,  he  thought,  of  wasting  the  lives  of  any 
more  of  his  men. 

128 


What  I  Want  to  Do  129 

But  one  day  there  was  a  young  knight 
who  came  to  join  the  order.  He  heard  about 
the  awful  dragon,  and  he  thought  to  himself, 
what  a  great  thing  it  would  be  to  go  out  and 
kill  him,  and  not  tell  any  one  about  it  until 
after  it  was  done.  So  he  took  his  sword  and 
went  outside  the  walls,  and  met  the  dragon  ; 
and  after  a  hard  fight  he  killed  him.  Then 
he  came  back  into  the  city  and  told  the 
people  what  he  had  done.  They  were  very 
glad  and  cheered  and  cheered.  Then  they 
made  a  big  procession  to  go  and  tell  the  Mas- 
ter of  the  Knights.  But  when  the  Master 
heard  of  it,  he  said,  **  What  is  the  first  rule  of 
our  order?"  The  young  man  answered,  ** It 
is  obedience,  sir."  Then  said  the  Master, 
**  You  were  commanded  not  to  fight  against 
the  dragon.  You  did  not  obey,  and  they 
who  do  not  obey  have  no  right  any  more  to 
wear  the  Cross  of  the  Order.  Take  ofi  the 
badge.  You  can  no  longer  be  a  Knight." 
And  the  young  man  took  it  off,  and  went 
away  without  saying  a  word.  But  after  he 
had  been  gone  a  while  the  Master  sent  for 
him,  and  said,  **  You  have  gained  a  better 
victory  by  obeying  the  order  to  take  off  the 
Cross,  than  you  did  by  slaying  the  dragon. 
You  may  have  the  Cross  again."  And  the 
young  man  became  a  great  warrior,  and  they 


130  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

say  that  when  the  Master  died,  he  became  the 
Master  in  his  place. 

This  legend  teaches  us  that  there  are  many 
things  that  we  would  like  to  do  and  that  seem 
right,  but  if  God  has  commanded  us,  or  our 
parents  have  commanded  us  not  to  do  them, 
we  must  not. 

•  Now  how  are  we  going  to  know  what  we 
ought  to  do?  There  are  several  ways  of 
knowing. 

,  First  there  is  that  little  voice  within  us  that 
we  call  Conscience.  It  almost  always  tells 
us  what  we  ought  not  to  do.  When  your 
conscience  tells  you  a  thing  is  wrong,  you 
may  be  pretty  sure  you  ought  not  to  do  it, 
for  that  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God,  that 
is  speaking  to  you. 

Then  there  is  the  Bible.  The  Bible  tells 
us  our  duty.  If  we  read  our  Bible  and  try 
to  do  what  it  says  we  will  not  have  any 
trouble  to  know  what  our  duty  is. 

And  there  are  our  parents.  If  they  are 
good  Christian  parents,  and  most  of  them 
are,  they  will  teach  us  what  we  ought  to  do. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  do  what  is  right. 

One  of  the  greatest  soldiers  that  ever  lived 
was  Frederick  the  Great.  It  is  said  that 
when  he  was  a  young  man  and  was  fighting 
his    first    battle,    he   became  so   frightened 


What  I  Want  to  Do  131 

that  he  turned  his  horse's  head  and  ran  away 
as  fast  as  he  could.  But  he  never  did  that 
again  and  he  Hved  to  be  the  bravest  soldier 
in  all  Europe.  It  may  be  hard  at  first  but  if 
like  King  Frederick,  we  keep  on  trying  we 
will  find  that  it  is  easy  to  do  the  things  that 
we  ought  to  do. 

We  very  often  use  the  word  "  duty." 
Duty  means  doing  what  we  ought  to  do. 
In  the  heart  of  London,  there  is  a  great 
monument  to  one  of  England's  heroes,  Lord 
Nelson.  Over  a  hundred  years  ago  Lord 
Nelson  was  commander  of  the  British  fleet. 
His  greatest  fight  was  the  battle  of  Trafalgar. 
Just  before  the  fight  began  he  ran  out  from 
the  masthead  of  the  flagship  this  signal  to 
the  fleet,  ''England  expects  every  man  to  do 
his  duty."  Every  man  did  his  duty  that  day, 
and  they  won  a  glorious  victory. 

Jesus  expects  every  boy  and  girl  to  do 
their  duty ;  to  do,  not  what  they  want  to  do, 
but  what  they  ought  to  do.  Then  they  too 
will  win  the  victory. 


XXXIII 

Paul's  Message  to  the  Children 

••  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able 

to  stand  against  the  wiles  of  the  devil." 

— Ephesians  vi.  II. 

Do  you  know  that  there  is  a  book  in  the 
Bible  that  has  a  children's  page  ?  It  is  the 
book  of  Ephesians.  If  you  will  turn  to  that 
book,  you  will  find  in  the  last  chapter,  a  page 
that  Paul  wrote  especially  for  the  children. 
Let  me  tell  you  how  he  happened  to  do  it. 
During  the  last  years  of  Paul's  life  he  was  a 
prisoner  in  Rome.  They  put  him  in  prison, 
not  because  he  had  done  anything  wrong, 
but  because  they  hated  the  Christians,  and 
Paul  was  a  Christian.  In  the  prison  with 
Paul  there  was  a  soldier,  who  was  there  to 
watch  Paul  and  see  that  he  did  not  try  to  get 
away. 

One  day  Paul  thought  that  he  would  send 
a  letter  to  his  old  friends  back  in  the  city  of 
Ephesus.  So  he  sat  down  to  write  the  letter, 
with  the  soldier  there  in  the  room  with  him. 
After  he  had  finished  several  pages  and  was 
about  to  sign  his  name,  he  said  to  himself, 
132 


Paul's  Message  to  the  Children      133 

"  I  ought  to  put  something  in  this  letter  for 
the  children  in  Ephesus.  They  are  going  to  be 
men  and  women  by  and  by,  and  it  will  never 
do  to  neglect  them."  And  then  Paul  began 
to  think  to  himself,  **  What  shall  I  write  to 
those  children  ?  I  can't  talk  to  them  about 
the  things  that  I  have  been  writing  of  to  their 
fathers  and  mothers.  They  wouldn't  under- 
stand." So  he  began  to  look  about  the 
room,  as  we  do  sometimes  when  we  can't 
think  what  to  write  about  in  our  letters. 
Just  then  he  noticed  that  soldier  there,  and  he 
said  to  himself,  '*  Why,  the  very  thing.  I 
will  tell  them  about  the  armor  that  a  soldier 
wears.  I  am  sure  that  they  will  be  interested 
in  that." 

Let  us  all  turn  to  this  letter  of  Paul's,  as  I 
try  to  tell  you  what  he  told  those  children 
about  that  armor. 

Soldiers  wore  armor  to  keep  them  from 
being  wounded  by  the  spears  and  arrows 
and  swords  of  their  enemies.  They  could 
not  win  a  victory  unless  they  had  their  armor 
on. 

But  some  boy  says  to  me,  **  Why  do  we  need 
armor  ?  We  have  no  battles  to  fight  these 
days."  Yes,  we  have.  Paul  says  in  this 
verse,  "  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God  that 
ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against  the  wiles  of 


134  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

the  devil."  The  devil  is  our  great  enemy, 
and  he  is  trying,  with  might  and  main,  to 
conquer  us,  and  make  us  do  the  things  that 
are  wrong. 

The  devil  has  a  great  many  wiles  or  tricks 
that  he  uses  in  his  efforts  to  make  us  sin. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  sentinel  in  one  of  our 
Indian  wars.  The  soldiers  were  out  in  the 
Indian  country  where  they  stopped  to  camp 
one  night.  A  sentinel  was  put  in  a  certain 
place  to  watch.  The  next  morning  they 
found  that  he  had  been  killed  during  the 
night.  The  other  sentinels  had  heard  noth- 
ing and  they  could  not  imagine  what  had 
happened  to  him.  The  next  night  another 
man  was  put  there  to  watch  and  when  the 
morning  came  he  too  was  found  dead.  So 
the  commanding  officer  called  the  most  trusted 
man  in  his  command,  and  said  to  him,  ''  I 
want  you  to  take  that  place  to-night,  and 
you  must  not  let  anything  escape  you.  If 
you  see  anything  move  shoot  at  it."  When 
night  came  the  man  went  to  his  place.  For 
several  hours  nothing  happened,  and  then  at 
last  he  thought  that  he  heard  a  twig  break, 
and  there  came  the  sound  of  something 
walking  very  softly  in  the  dry  leaves.  He 
cried  out,  "  Who  goes  there  ?  "  But  there 
was    no    answer.     All    was    quiet    and    he 


Paul's  Message  to  the  Children      135 

thought  that  he  must  be  mistaken.  Then  he 
saw  something  move,  and  he  was  just  going 
to  fire  when  he  discovered  that  it  was  only  a 
big  dog  creeping  through  the  bushes.  He 
put  down  his  gun  thinking  how  foolish  he 
had  been  to  be  frightened  by  a  dog.  Then 
he  remembered  the  words  of  the  officer  to 
shoot  at  anything  that  moved,  so  he  lifted  his 
gun  and  fired  and  the  dog  fell.  He  ran  over  to 
where  the  dog  lay,  and  there  he  found  a  dog- 
skin with  a  dead  Indian  inside.  Every  night 
that  Indian  had  crept  into  that  skin  and  had 
come  so  near  the  sentry  that  he  could  kill 
him,  before  he  knew  that  there  was  any 
danger. 

Pretty  wily  old  Indian,  wasn't  he  ?  Paul 
tells  us  to  look  out  for  the  wiles  of  Satan. 
He  is  like  the  Indian.  He  comes  and  tries  to 
make  us  believe  that  it  is  perfectly  safe  to 
trust  him  and  obey  him,  and  then  when  we 
let  him  come  too  near,  he  gets  us  in  his  power. 
This  is  the  reason  that  Paul  told  us  to  always 
have  on  the  armor,  which  will  protect  us 
against  the  wiles  of  the  devil. 


XXXIV 

The  Whole  Armor 

**  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God." — Ephesians  vi.  1 1. 

Let  us  see  how  many  different  parts  there 
are  to  the  armor  of  which  Paul  spoke.  There 
is  the  helmet  and  the  breastplate  and  the 
girdle  and  the  shoes.  Did  you  notice  any- 
thing strange  about  this  armor?  There  is 
not  a  single  piece  of  armor  for  the  back  of 
the  body.  It  is  all  for  the  front.  That  seems 
Uke  an  oversight,  doesn't  it  ?  Do  you  think 
that  Paul  could  possibly  have  forgotten  about 
the  back  ?  No,  he  did  not  forget.  There  is 
no  armor  for  the  back.  The  only  kind  of  a 
soldier  who  is  wounded  in  the  back  is  the  one 
who  is  a  coward  and  runs  away. 

Long  ago  in  Greece  sometimes  a  young 
soldier  was  carried  home  wounded  from  the 
batde-field.  We  are  told  that  the  first  thing 
his  mother  did  was  to  look  and  see  if  the 
wounds  were  on  the  front  of  the  body,  or  in 
the  back.  If  they  were  in  the  back  she  knew 
that  he  had  had  his  back  to  the  enemy  when 
he  was  struck,  and  that  would  make  her  far 
136 


The  Whole  Armor  137 

more  sorrowful  than  the  fact  that  he  had  been 
hurt. 

God  doesn't  give  us  any  armor  for  the 
back.  He  wants  us  to  be  brave  against  the 
evil  and  to  stand  like  boys  and  girls  who  are 
not  afraid. 

Then  Paul  tells  us  to  put  on  the  whole 
armor.  It  will  not  do  to  put  on  a  part  and 
leave  off  the  rest.  We  must  put  on  the 
whole  armor.  If  we  do  not,  Satan  will  strike 
us  where  we  have  no  armor  on. 

At  night  we  lock  up  our  houses  to  keep 
the  burglars  out.  Probably  you  have  heard 
your  father  going  around  the  last  thing  be- 
fore he  goes  to  bed  to  be  sure  that  the  house 
is  all  secure.  If  he  should  forget  one  little 
window,  it  would  not  make  any  difference 
how  careful  he  had  been  with  all  the  rest. 
That  is  where  the  thief  would  come  in. 

I  once  heard  of  a  man  who  did  a  thing 
like  that.  He  had  a  fine  horse  in  his  barn 
that  he  valued  very  highly,  and  every  night 
he  locked  the  barn  carefully,  for  he  had  heard 
that  there  were  horse  thieves  in  the  country. 
There  were  three  doors  to  that  barn.  There 
was  a  big  door  in  the  front,  and  a  little  door 
at  the  side,  and  another  door  at  the  back. 
Well,  one  night  he  locked  the  big  door  in  the 
front,  and  then  he  locked  the  little  door  on 


138  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

the  side,  but  he  was  in  a  hurry  and  said  to 
himself,  ''I  will  leave  that  door  in  the  back 
open  to-night.  It  is  hot  very  likely  that  any 
one  will  go  around  there." 

But  that  very  night  a  thief  came.  He  tried 
the  front  door.  It  was  fastened.  He  tried 
the  side  door,  and  that  was  locked,  too. 
Then  he  went  around  to  the  back.  Sure 
enough,  the  door  was  open.  And  he  took 
the  horse.  The  man  had  left  just  one  door 
unlocked,  but  it  was  through  that  door  that 
the  thief  came. 

Do  you  see  now  why  God  tells  us  to  put 
on  the  whole  armor  ?  If  we  leave  one  little 
place  unprotected  Satan  is  going  to  get  in 
there  and  do  us  harm. 

A  teacher  was  telling  me  about  a  little  girl 
in  her  room.  This  is  what  she  said:  "She  is 
such  a  good  little  girl  in  so  many  ways.  She 
is  bright  and  neat  and  kind,  but  we  cannot 
believe  what  she  says."  There  was  a  little 
girl  who  had  all  the  armor  on  but  the  girdle 
of  truth,  and  Satan  had  come  and  made  a 
liar  of  her. 

There  are  boys  you  know  who  are  so 
promising,  such  splendid  fellows,  every  one 
would  love  them  if  they  did  not  have  such 
bad  tempers.  What  is  the  matter?  They 
have  forgotten  the  shoes  of  peace. 


The  Whole  Armor  139 

There  is  a  legend  of  a  Greek  hero  named 
Achilles.  He  was  a  great  warrior.  Arrows 
and  swords  and  spears  could  not  hurt  him, 
and  for  many  years  he  led  a  charmed  life. 
But  there  was  one  weak  spot  in  his  body. 
It  was  in  his  heel.  His  enemies  found  out 
about  it,  and  one  of  them  shot  a  poisoned 
arrow  that  wounded  him  in  the  heel  and 
killed  him. 

Satan  knows  the  weak  spot  in  every  one 
of  us.  When  we  forget  to  put  on  one  piece 
of  the  armor  he  knows  it,  and  it  is  there  that 
he  will  attack  us. 

So  you  see  we  must  have  on  all  the  armor 
if  we  are  to  stand  strong  when  Satan  comes. 

**  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God." 


XXXV 

The  Girdle  of  Truth 

«*  Stand,  therefore,  having  your  loins  girt  about  with 
truth." — Ephesians  vi.  14. 

Before  we  think  of  the  Girdle  of  Truth, 
there  is  one  other  thing  that  we  must  not 
forget  about  this  armor  of  the  Lord.  We 
must  wear  it  all  the  time.  When  we  come 
into  the  house  on  cold  days,  we  lay  off  our 
overcoats,  because  we  do  not  need  them  there. 
When  we  go  to  sleep  at  night  we  put  off  the 
clothes  we  have  been  wearing  during  the 
day.  But  this  armor  is  something  which 
we  must  never  put  ofif. 

Oliver  Cromwell,  one  of  the  greatest  sol- 
diers of  all  time,  is  said  to  have  kept  on  his 
armor  day  and  night.  He  said  that  he  never 
knew  when  an  enemy  was  coming  to  attack 
him,  and  he  wanted  to  be  ready.  So  we 
never  know  when  Satan  is  coming  to  tempt 
us.  Therefore,  we  must  never  lay  aside  our 
armor  day  or  night. 

Now  let  us  think  of  the  various  parts  of 
the  armor.  Which  of  them  do  you  think 
140 


The  Girdle  of  Truth  141 

Paul  speaks  about  first?  There  is  the  hel- 
met, and  the  breastplate,  and  the  girdle,  and 
the  shoes,  and  the  sword,  and  the  shield. 
We  would  think  that  he  would  have  put  the 
helmet  first,  for  it  is  meant  to  cover  the  head 
and  protect  the  brain ;  or  the  breastplate, 
which  covers  the  heart.  But  no,  Paul  puts 
the  Girdle  of  Truth  first.  That  is  the  part  of 
the  armor  to  be  considered  first.  Everything 
else  that  the  soldier  has,  is  in  some  way  de- 
pendent upon  that  girdle.  The  breastplate 
fastens  to  it  in  front,  and  the  greaves,  or 
shoes,  are  connected  with  it  from  below,  and 
just  at  the  side  there  is  a  hook,  where  the 
sword  hangs,  and  in  the  back  there  is  a  place 
to  which  the  shield  is  fastened  when  it  is  not 
in  use.  The  girdle,  when  we  come  to  think 
about  it,  is  the  most  necessary  part  of  the 
armor  of  the  soldier. 

So  Paul  tells  us  that  first  of  all  and  above 
all,  we  must  have  the  Girdle  of  Truth.  That 
is  the  first  thing  that  a  man  wants  to  know 
about  a  boy.  Is  he  truthful  ?  It  is  the  one 
thing  that  we  want  to  know  about  every  girl. 
Does  she  always  speak  the  truth?  I  once 
heard  a  man,  who  knows  a  great  deal  about 
children,  say  that  it  did  not  make  any  differ- 
ence how  ignorant  a  child  was.  He  could  be 
taught.     It  made  no  difference  if  he  was  ill- 


142  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

mannered.  He  could  learn  to  be  a  gentle- 
man. But  the  child  who  cannot  tell  the 
truth  is  hopeless.  There  isn't  anything  to 
build  on.  It  is  like  laying  the  foundations  of 
a  house  on  the  sand.     It  will  not  stand. 

So,  boys  and  girls,  when  you  go  out  to 
fight  the  battle  of  life  be  sure,  first  of  all, 
that  you  have  on  the  Girdle  of  Truth. 

Every  lie  is  unnecessary  and  dangerous. 
Boys  and  girls  sometimes  tell  lies  '*  just  for 
fun,"  as  they  say.  They  do  not  mean  any- 
thing by  it.  Once  I  heard  a  little  girl  say  to 
her  playmate,  **  Your  mother  wants  you." 
When  the  little  playmate  went  to  see,  she 
found  that  her  mother  had  not  called  her 
at  all.  The  other  little  girl  had  only  meant 
it  for  a  joke,  but  it  was  an  untruth  for  all 
that.  Did  you  ever  have  an  apple  that  was 
fine  and  good  outside  and  then  when  you 
cut  it  open  it  was  bad  at  the  core  ?  There 
are  some  lies  that  are  like  that.  They  seem 
all  right,  till  we  look  into  them,  and  then  we 
discover  that  they  are  just  as  wicked  as  any 
others.  To  be  on  the  safe  side  it  is  best 
always  to  wear  this  Girdle  of  Truth  that  Paul 
tells  us  about,  then  Satan  will  not  harm  us. 

The  old  Persians  long  ago  had  a  law  that 
when  any  person  was  found  guilty  of  telling 
three   lies   he  was  never  allowed   to   speak 


The  Girdle  of  Truth  143 

again.  If  we  had  that  law  there  would  be 
some  of  us  who  would  not  be  doing  much 
talking,  would  we? 

Let  us  not  forget  the  Girdle  of  Truth. 

There  is  an  expression  that  is  often  found 
in  the  Bible.  We  read,  "  He  girded  up  his 
loins."  That  means  that  he  tightened  his 
girdle.  Before  a  man  could  run  a  race,  or 
fight  a  battle,  or  do  some  hard  work,  he  had 
to  look  out  for  his  girdle,  and  see  that  it  was 
good  and  tight. 

Now  while  you  are  young  and  life  is  before 
you,  you  ought  all  to  look  out  for  the  girdle. 
You  must  try  to  take  a  tighter  grip  on  the 
truth  than  you  have  ever  done  before,  and 
make  sure  that  all  that  you  are,  and  all  that 
you  say,  are  true. 


XXXVI 

The  Breastplate  of  Righteousness 

**  Having  on  the  Breastplate  of  Righteousness." 
— Ephesians  vi.  14. 

In  the  Tower  of  London  there  is  a  famous 
room  known  as  the  Armory.  In  it  is  the 
greatest  collection  of  armor  in  the  world. 
There  are  shields  and  helmets  and  swords 
and  spears,  that  the  kings  and  nobles  of  old 
England  used  to  use,  when  they  went  out  to 
war.  There  is  armor  there  for  horses,  and 
there  is  one  suit  of  armor  that  is  more  beau- 
tiful than  all  the  rest.  It  was  made  for  an 
English  prince,  a  little  boy,  and  is  ornamented 
with  gold  and  silver. 

Paul  in  this  sixth  chapter  of  Ephesians  tells 
us  of  the  armor  that  every  boy  and  girl 
ought  to  wear  now.  I  have  spoken  to  you 
of  the  girdle,  and  now  I  wish  to  tell  you 
about  the  breastplate,  the  Breastplate  pf 
Righteousness. 

The  breastplate  of  the  soldier  is  very  im- 
portant, because  it  covers  the  heart  and  the 
lungs.  God  has  done  much  to  protect  the 
144 


The  Breastplate  of  Righteousness     145 

breast.  When  I  was  a  small  boy,  sometimes 
another  boy  would  come  up  to  me  and  put 
his  finger  on  his  chest  and  say,  "  Hit  me 
there."  He  wanted  to  show  me  what  a  hard 
blow  he  could  stand  on  his  chest.  Do  you 
know  why  the  chest  is  so  strong  ?  It  is  be- 
cause God  has  put  a  stout  wall  of  bones  and 
sinews  all  around  it,  to  protect  the  heart  and 
the  lungs.  But  when  the  soldier  went  into 
battle,  and  was  to  fight  with  men  who  had 
spears  and  swords,  those  bones  were  not 
enough,  and  he  needed  besides  a  breastplate 
of  steel  to  protect  his  heart. 

In  this  verse  Paul  tells  us  to  put  on  the 
Breastplate  of  Righteousness.  What  is  right- 
eousness? It  is  simply  doing  right.  That 
is  all,  and  we  can  all  do  that.  The  breast- 
plate of  the  soldier  kept  him  from  being  hurt, 
and  Paul  tells  us  that  the  very  best  way  we 
can  keep  from  being  hurt  is  to  do  right. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  world  that 
will  do  so  much  to  protect  us  from  harm  as 
doing  right.  Almost  every  time  we  are  hurt 
and  have  to  suffer,  it  is  because  we  have  been 
doing  wrong.  We  did  not  have  on  the 
Breastplate  of  Righteousness. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  I  was  one  day 
punished  in  school  for  something  that  I 
ought  not  to  have  done.     It  hurt,  and  when 


146  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

I  went  home  I  told  my  father  about  it,  but  he 
didn't  give  me  much  sympathy.  He  said : 
*'  If  you  had  been  doing  right  you  would  not 
have  been  hurt." 

Some  time  ago  I  saw  two  men  coming 
along  the  street.  They  had  been  in  a  fight 
and  looked  as  though  they  had  had  the 
worst  of  it.  They  were  coming  out  of  a 
saloon.  If  they  had  been  doing  right,  they 
would  not  have  been  hurt. 

One  of  our  doctors  told  me  that  almost  all 
the  diseases  that  trouble  us  are  the  result  of 
wrong-doing.  People  do  wrong,  and  then 
they  have  to  suffer  for  it.  If  men  and 
women,  and  boys  and  girls,  would  only  do 
right,  there  would  not  be  nearly  so  much 
disease  in  the  world.  The  very  best  safe- 
guard against  disease  is  to  do  right. 

More  than  that,  most  of  the  worries  that 
come  to  us  are  caused  by  the  fact  that  we 
know  we  have  not  done  right. 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  remember  what  Paul 
tells  us  here.  The  best  protection  in  the 
world  against  sin  and  evil  is  the  Breastplate 
of  Righteousness,  just  doing  right  every  day 
that  we  live.     Can  we  do  it  ?     Let's  try. 


XXXVII 

The  Shoes  of  Peace 

•*  Your  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  Gospel  of 
Peace." — Ephesians  vi.  15. 

Paul  has  told  us  about  the  Girdle  of 
Truth,  and  the  Breastplate  of  Righteousness, 
and  now  he  commands  us  to  put  on  the 
Shoes  of  Peace.  It  sounds  a  little  strange  to 
think  of  a  soldier  having  on  Shoes  of  Peace. 
Everything  else  that  he  wears  has  something 
to  do  with  war  and  fighting,  all  but  the  shoes, 
and  they  have  to  do  with  peace.  He  re- 
minds us  here  that  no  man  ever  made  a 
good  soldier  unless  down  underneath  it  all 
there  was  in  his  heart  a  longing  for  peace. 

Now  let  us  see  if  we  can  discover  what 
these  Shoes  of  Peace  mean.  Suppose  one  of 
you  boys  were  to  get  up  some  cold  winter 
morning,  and  were  to  forget  to  put  your 
shoes  on  when  you  went  to  school.  The 
hard,  rutty  road  would  hurt  your  feet,  every 
little  stone  and  stick  you  stepped  on  would 
make  you  jump,  until,  before  you  had  gone 
very  far,  you  would  be  cross  and  out-of- 
147 


148  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

sorts,  and  all  because  you  had  forgotten  those 
shoes  that  morning. 

Paul  tells  us  that  we  are  to  put  on  the 
Shoes  of  Peace.  They  will  keep  us  from 
strife  and  trouble.  You  all  know  what  it 
means  to  wake  up  some  morning,  peevish 
and  bad-tempered  about  everything,  and  to 
be  hateful  and  unkind  to  everybody,  until 
probably  before  night  your  mother  says  to 
you,  *'  You  certainly  did  get  out  of  bed  the 
wrong  side  this  morning.  You  have  been 
as  cross  as  a  litde  bear  all  day  long." 

Let  me  tell  you  just  what  the  matter  was 
that  day.  You  did  not  have  on  those  Shoes 
of  Peace  about  which  we  read  in  this  verse. 
Some  day  you  go  to  school  and  everything 
is  bright  and  pleasant  all  the  day.  You  en- 
joy your  breakfast  and  you  know  your 
lessons  and  your  teacher  is  so  kind,  and  you 
have  great  fun  on  the  playground,  and  it  is  a 
fine  day  all  the  way  through. 

Then,  maybe,  the  very  next  day  every- 
thing goes  wrong.  You  think  your  parents 
do  not  love  you  very  much ;  you  do  not 
know  your  lesson,  your  teacher  is  cross,  you 
have  trouble  on  the  playground,  and  are 
naughty  to  your  mother,  and  when  father 
comes  home  you  are  very  likely  punished. 

Almost  every  boy  and  girl  has  a  day  like 


The  Shoes  of  Peace  149 

that  sometimes  when  everything  goes  wrong. 
Now  what  was  the  matter  ?  Didn't  the  sun 
shine  just  as  brightly  that  day  ?  Of  course 
it  did.  Didn't  your  parents  love  you  as 
much  that  day  ?  Of  course  they  did.  Were 
your  teachers  and  playmates  unkind  to  you 
that  day  ?  Of  course  they  were  not.  Well, 
then,  what  was  the  matter  ?  Let  me  tell  you. 
You  didn't  have  on  the  Shoes  of  Peace. 
You  forgot  and  left  them  off  that  morning 
when  you  dressed,  and  all  day  you  have  been 
unhappy. 

When  we  wake  up  in  the  morning  we 
ought  to  say  to  ourselves,  "  I  am  going  to  be 
at  peace  to-day  with  everybody."  And  the 
way  to  be  at  peace  with  every  one  is  to  try 
and  do  as  much  good,  to  as  many  people,  in 
as  many  ways  as  we  can. 

If  you  each  were  to  be  given  a  little  book, 
and  were  told  to  tear  out  a  leaf  every  time 
you  were  guilty  of  speaking  an  angry  or  un- 
kind word,  how  long  do  you  think  that  book 
would  last  ?  Let  us  remember  when  we  start 
the  day  to  be  sure  and  put  on  the  Shoes  of 
Peace. 


XXXVIII 
The  Shield  of  Faith 

"Above  all  taking  the  Shield  of  Faith." 
— Ephesians  vi.  1 6. 

The  shield  was  the  weapon  the  soldier  car- 
ried on  his  arm,  to  protect  him  from  the  spears 
and  swords  of  his  enemies.  You  all  have 
seen  pictures  of  shields.  Some  of  them  were 
oval  in  shape,  and  some  were  round,  and 
there  were  others  that  were  rectangular. 
They  were  made  of  brass,  or  wood,  or  leather, 
and  sometimes  of  gold.  Solomon  made  a 
great  many  shields  of  gold,  which  were  all 
taken  away  by  the  king  of  Egypt  when  he 
came  up  to  fight  against  Jerusalem. 

A  shield  was  a  very  necessary  part  of  the 
armor  of  every  good  soldier.  When  he  saw 
an  arrow  coming  his  way  he  held  up  the 
shield  and  the  arrow  hit  it  instead  of  him. 
When  an  enemy  struck  at  him  with  his  sword 
he  received  the  blow  on  his  shield  instead  of 
on  his  head.  If  he  knew  how  to  handle  the 
shield  it  would  protect  his  whole  body.  A 
soldier  without  his  shield  did  not  stand  much 
chance  in  a  battle. 

150 


The  Shield  of  Faith  151 

If  we  are  good  Christian  soldiers,  Paul 
says,  we  must  every  one  of  us  have  the  Shield 
of  Faith.  The  Shield  of  Faith  is  that  which 
protects  us  in  our  hours  of  danger. 

If  I  were  to  ask  one  of  you  children  what 
man  in  the  world  loves  you  most  you  would 
tell  me  your  father.  Your  father  would  not 
allow  any  harm  to  come  near  you  for  any- 
thing. If  he  were  some  day  to  take  a  sharp 
sword  and  hold  it  within  an  inch  of  your 
heart,  you  would  not  be  afraid.  You  know 
that  your  father  would  not  hurt  you.  You 
would  be  no  more  afraid  than  if  there  were  a 
great  shield  of  brass  there  to  protect  you. 
There  is  no  shield  there,  but  there  is  some- 
thing that  does  keep  you  from  being  afraid, 
and  that  is  your  trust  and  faith  in  your  father 

Or  perhaps  you  go  out  to  walk  with  him 
some  night  when  it  is  very  dark.  You  are 
afraid  of  the  dark.  You  would  not  like  to  be 
out  alone  in  the  dark.  But  with  your  hand 
in  your  father's  hand  you  are  not  afraid.  If 
anything  were  to  try  to  hurt  you  you  know 
that  your  father  would  stand  between  you  and 
any  harm  that  might  come  to  you.  Your 
faith  in  your  father  is  like  the  shield  about 
which  I  was  telling  you.  It  keeps  you  from 
fear,  for  you  know  that  with  him  nothing  can 
harm  you. 


152  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Now  if  we  are  to  be  good  Christians  we 
must  have  the  Shield  of  Faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 
When  a  soldier  fought,  it  was  the  shield  that 
received  the  blow  instead  of  him.  Let  me  tell 
you  something  about  Jesus  that  you  must 
never  forget.  He  died  on  the  cross  for  us. 
He  was  like  that  good  shield  that  I  have  been 
trying  to  tell  you  about.  He  received  the 
blow  that  was  meant  for  us.  He  kept  us 
from  losing  our  souls  by  dying  there  in  our 
places.  That  is  how  Jesus  is  the  shield  of  the 
Christian.  We  need  not  be  afraid  of  the  evil 
that  is  in  the  world,  and  the  temptations  that 
trouble  us  every  day.  He  stands  between  us 
and  the  evil  and  will  be  our  shield  if  we  will 
love  and  serve  Him. 

You  do  not  fear  the  dark  if  your  father  is 
with  you.  He  is  the  shield  that  keeps  you 
from  harm.  So  we  need  not  fear  death  even, 
for  Jesus  goes  with  us  just  as  the  loving  father 
holds  the  hand  of  his  little  child,  as  they  go 
out  walking  in  the  night  together.  "  Above 
all,  taking  the  Shield  of  Faith." 


XXXIX 

The  Helmet  of  Salvation 

•*  And  take  the  Helmet  of  Salvation." — Ephesians  vi.  17. 

The  helmet  is  the  hat  of  the  soldier.  It  is 
the  armor  for  the  head.  The  brain,  one  of 
the  most  important  organs  in  the  whole  body, 
is  in  the  head,  so  he  must  take  great  care  to 
protect  it  from  harm. 

You  have  most  of  you  seen  the  firemen, 
dashing  away  to  a  fire  behind  the  big,  fine, 
fire  horses.  You  have  noticed  those  funny 
helmets  that  they  wear  on  their  heads,  and 
you  have  perhaps  wondered  why  they  wear 
them.  They  put  them  on  to  protect  the 
head.  If  they  were  fighting  a  fire  and  a 
piece  of  brick  or  wood  from  a  burning  build- 
ing were  to  fall  on  their  heads  they  would  be 
killed,  so  before  they  go  near  the  fire  they 
put  on  their  helmets. 

I  once  saw  a  fireman  standing  near  a 
building  that  was  on  fire  and  he  did  not  have 
on  his  helmet.  A  piece  of  brick  fell  down 
from  one  of  the  top  stories  and  hit  him  on  the 
shoulder.  If  it  had  struck  him  on  the  head 
153 


154  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

it  would  have  killed  him,  because  there  was 
no  helmet  there  to  save  him.  That  is  the 
reason  that  firemen  all  wear  helmets. 

In  the  same  way  every  good  Christian 
needs  a  helmet,  the  Helmet  of  Salvation. 
This  helmet  is  meant  to  protect  the  soul. 
You  know  that  there  is  more  to  every  one  of 
you  than  the  body,  that  you  can  see,  and  the 
mind  that  you  use  when  you  study  in  school. 
There  is  beside  a  soul,  and  that  soul  is  the 
most  important  part  of  you. 

Not  long  ago  I  went  to  the  funeral  of  a  lit- 
tle child.  They  took  that  little  body  and  put 
it  in  the  cemetery,  and  we  didn't  see  her  any 
more.  But  there  was  one  part  of  that  little 
girl  that  did  not  go  into  the  ground.  There 
was  a  part  of  her  that  did  not  die  at  all,  but 
went  to  live  forever  with  God.  It  was  her 
soul.  That  soul  is  the  best  part  of  every  one 
of  you.  It  is  the  part  that  is  going  to  live 
forever.  So  we  ought  to  be  very  careful 
with  these  souls. 

God  has  given  us  a  piece  of  armor  to  pro- 
tect the  soul.  It  is  the  Helmet  of  Salvation. 
If  you  trust  and  love  Jesus  you  have  on  the 
Helmet  of  Salvation,  and  nothing  can  harm 
your  soul.     You  are  safe. 

There  are  some  kinds  of  helmets  that 
would    not  do   a  soldier   much   good.      It 


The  Helmet  of  Salvation  155 

would  not  do  him  much  good  to  go  into  bat- 
tle with  a  paper  helmet.  A  helmet  like  that 
would  not  protect  his  head  very  well.  And 
it  would  not  do  him  much  good  to  wear  a 
wooden  helmet.  One  good  stroke  of  the 
sword  would  split  the  helmet,  and  then  where 
would  he  be  ?  He  must  wear  a  steel  helmet, 
and  then  he  is  safe. 

In  the  same  way  there  is  just  one  kind  of 
helmet  that  will  save  the  soul.  It  is  the 
Helmet  of  Salvation.  There  are  people  who 
wear  other  kinds  of  helmets.  Some  people 
think  that  if  they  do  not  break  any  of  the  ten 
commandments  that  that  will  save  their  souls. 
And  there  are  others  who  believe  that  if  they 
are  good  and  kind  that  that  is  enough. 
These  are  pretty  good  helmets,  but  they  will 
not  save  the  soul.  There  is  only  one  helmet 
that  will  always  save,  and  that  is  the  Helmet 
of  Salvation,  loving  and  serving  and  trusting 
Jesus  Christ,   the  Saviour. 


XL 


The  Sword  of  the  Spirit 

**  Take  the   Sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of 
God." — Ephesians  vi.  17. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  last  piece  of 
armor  of  which  Paul  tells  us,  the  sword.  No 
matter  how  many  of  the  other  parts  of  the 
armor  a  soldier  wore,  if  he  had  no  sword  he 
would  not  be  able  to  fight,  so  we  must  mind 
particularly  what  he  says  about  the  sword. 

Many  years  ago  when  King  Edward  the 
Sixth  was  crowned  king  they  brought  to  him 
three  swords  to  show  that  he  was  king  of 
England  and  Ireland  and  France.  Edward 
took  the  three  swords  and  laid  them  down 
before  him  and  said,  "  There  is  yet  one  other 
sword."  They  asked  him,  "  What  sword  ?  " 
He  replied, ''  The  Sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is 
the  word  of  God."  So  from  that  day  when- 
ever a  king  of  Great  Britain  is  crowned  they 
put  into  his  hand  the  Bible  as  one  of  the 
swords  of  the  empire. 

Paul  calls  the  Bible  a  sword.  It  does  not 
156 


The  Sword  of  the  Spirit  157 

look  like  a  sword,  but  there  are  many  things 
about  it  that  make  us  think  of  one. 

First  it  cannot  be  destroyed.  A  good 
sword  is  almost  indestructible.  In  the  old 
days  they  used  to  make  wonderful  swords  in 
Toledo  in  Spain.  They  were  formed  of  the 
finest  steel  and  were  so  hard  it  was  almost 
impossible  to  dull  them.  There  are  some  of 
those  old  swords  to-day  and  they  are  just  as 
bright  and  keen  as  they  were  when  Columbus 
discovered  America  over  four  hundred  years 
ago. 

It  is  the  same  way  with  the  Bible.  Bad 
men  have  been  trying  to  destroy  the  Bible 
for  nearly  two  thousand  years.  But  God 
made  it  so  perfectly  that  it  will  last  forever. 

There  is  another  thing  about  the  Bible  that 
is  like  a  sword.  A  sword  cuts.  So  does  the 
Bible.  Men  used  to  run  their  swords  into 
each  other's  bodies  in  battle.  In  the  same 
way  the  Bible  sometimes  cuts  people  to  the 
heart. 

One  day  a  man  came  to  church.  He  had 
not  been  inside  a  church  for  a  great  many 
years.  He  had  not  been  a  good  man.  He 
did  not  love  God.  He  came  more  than  any- 
thing else  to  make  fun  of  the  service  and 
trouble  for  the  minister.  The  minister  gave 
out  his  text,  and  there  was  something  in  that 


158  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

verse  that  made  that  bad  man  listen.  The 
text  was,  **  For  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  on  Him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  Many  years  be- 
fore, he  had  heard  his  mother  read  that  out 
of  her  Bible.  She  had  been  gone  many 
years,  but  when  the  minister  read  those 
words  that  morning  they  went  straight  to 
his  heart  like  the  stroke  of  a  sharp  sword 
and  made  a  Christian  of  him.  That  is  why 
the  Bible  is  like  a  sword.  It  goes  straight 
to  our  hearts  if  we  will  listen  to  its  teachings. 

And  there  is  a  third  way  in  which  the  Bible 
is  like  a  sword.  It  destroys  evil.  In  the  old 
days  before  they  had  any  guns  policemen 
used  to  carry  long  swords.  When  they 
heard  that  there  were  thieves  and  robbers 
in  the  city  they  took  their  swords  and  went 
after  them.  They  used  their  swords  to  des- 
troy the  evil.  This  is  what  the  Good  Book 
does.  It  destroys  sin.  Wherever  the  Bible 
goes  evil  has  to  flee. 

Away  in  the  South  Seas  there  is  an  island 
where  they  used  to  kill  men  and  women  and 
eat  them.  Those  people  were  savage  canni- 
bals. But  one  day  the  missionaries  came 
there  with  the  Bible.  The  people  gave  up 
their  wickedness  and  became  Christians,  and 


The  Sword  of  the  Spirit  159 

it  is  now  just  as  civilized  as  it  is  at  home. 
One  day  a  trader  met  one  of  the  old  chiefs 
and  said  to  him,  "  What  has  made  the  won- 
derful change  in  your  island  ? "  The  old 
man  answered,  **  It  is  the  Bible.  It  is  the 
Bible  that  has  destroyed  sin  and  made  us 
good." 

So  you  see  the  Bible  is  like  the  sword. 
It  endures.  It  cuts  to  the  heart.  It  des- 
troys sin. 

There  is  one  other  thing  every  boy  and 
girl  ought  to  remember  about  this  Sword. 
A  sword  will  not  do  a  man  much  good  if 
he  takes  it  and  puts  it  away  and  never  uses 
it.  The  Bible  will  not  help  us  much  if  we 
are  going  to  put  it  on  the  shelf  and  not 
read  it.  We  ought  to  use  it  every  day  that 
we  live. 


XLI 

Obedience 

"  Children,  obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord,  for  thii 
is  right." — Ephesians  vi.  i. 

The  first  lesson  that  every  soldier  has  to 
learn  is  obedience,  and  the  very  first  thing 
that  every  boy  and  girl  ought  to  be  taught 
by  their  parents  is  to  obey. 

Several  years  ago  a  fire  broke  out,  in  the 
third  story  of  one  of  the  school  buildings  in 
a  great  city.  When  the  fire  alarm  was 
sounded  there  was  great  panic  among  the 
children.  They  ran  and  pushed  and  crowded, 
trying  to  get  out,  and  some  of  them  were 
badly  hurt.  But  one  litde  girl  sat  still  in 
her  seat  and  never  moved.  Her  teacher, 
who  was  trying  to  help  the  children,  saw 
her  and  ran  to  her  and  asked  why  she  did 
not  try  to  escape.  The  little  girl  answered, 
**  My  father  is  a  fireman,  and  he  told  me  if 
ever  there  was  a  fire  in  the  school,  to  sit  still 
in  my  seat  and  he  would  come  up  through 
the  window  and  get  me."  Sure  enough,  just 
at  that  moment,  he  came  and  carried  the 
1 60 


Obedience  161 

little  girl  out.  That  little  girl  had  learned 
to  obey. 

In  our  text  the  great  Apostle  Paul  tells  us 
that  we  must  obey  our  parents.  We  are  to 
obey  them  first  of  all  because  it  is  the  right 
thing  for  us  to  do.  We  owe  them  obedi- 
ence. When  you  were  very  little,  so  little 
that  you  were  not  able  to  do  anything  for 
yourself,  who  was  it  that  took  care  of  you  ? 
It  was  your  parents.  Your  mother  fed  and 
clothed  you,  and  ran  hundreds  of  errands 
every  day  for  you,  and  would  not  allow 
anything  to  harm  you.  And  your  father 
went  to  work  every  day  to  earn  money  that 
you  might  have  what  you  needed  to  make 
you  strong  and  well  and  happy.  If  it  were 
not  for  those  good  parents  you  would  not 
have  been  able  to  live  a  single  day.  Since 
they  have  done  so  much  for  you,  you  ought 
always  to  be  thoughtful  and  kind  and  con- 
siderate to  them.  There  is  no  better  way  by 
which  you  can  show  your  thanks  to  them 
than  by  obedience. 

And  there  is  another  reason  why  children 
should  obey  their  parents.  They  know  so 
much  more  than  you  do  about  everything. 

The  day  after  war  was  declared  between 
Germany  and  England,  there  was  a  big  Ger- 
man ship  crossing  the  Atlantic  with  a  great 


i62  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

amount  of  gold  on  board.  One  night  the  cap- 
tain of  that  ship  received  a  message  to  hurry 
at  once  into  some  American  port,  or  the  ship 
would  be  captured  by  the  English  war-ships. 
The  German  captain  did  not  know  what  to 
do.  He  couldn't  go  on  and  he  couldn't  go 
back.  While  he  was  puzzling  about  it,  a 
man  on  the  ship  came  to  him  and  said, 
"  Why  don't  you  go  into  Bar  Harbor  ?  We 
are  very  near  there  now  and  there  you  will 
be  safe."  The  captain  answered,  "But  I 
do  not  know  the  way  into  Bar  Harbor.  I 
would  run  on  the  rocks  or  the  shoals." 

The  man  said,  **  1  have  been  all  along  this 
coast  in  my  yacht,  and  if  you  will  let  me 
steer  the  ship  I  will  bring  you  safe  into  the 
harbor." 

So  the  captain  took  the  man  to  the  pilot 
and  said,  "  I  want  you  to  go  just  where  this 
man  tells  you.     He  knows  the  way." 

So  the  man  stood  by  the  pilot  that  night 
pointing  out  the  way,  and  the  next  morning 
they  came  safely  into  the  harbor  without 
striking  a  rock  or  a  shoal. 

Boys  and  girls  are  very  like  this  pilot. 
They  do  not  know  the  way  that  is  before 
them.  They  have  never  travelled  it  before. 
But  their  parents  have  been  over  it  and 
know  every  part  of  the  way.     If  they  will 


Obedience  163 

only  obey,  they  will  know  how  to  steer  dear 
of  the  rocks  and  the  rough  places. 

The  great  trouble  is  that  many  boys  and 
girls  think  that  they  know  more  than  their 
fathers  and  mothers,  and  when  they  try  to 
go  their  own  way,  they  run  into  trouble. 
There  is  no  better  command  for  young  peo- 
ple than  these  words  of  Paul's,  "  Children, 
obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord,  for  this  is 
right." 


XLII 
How  to  be  a  Home  Missionary 

"  Go  home  to  thy  friends,  and  tell  them  how  great  things 
Jesus  hath  done  for  thee." — Mark  v.  19. 

The  fifth  chapter  of  Mark  tells  us  about 
one  of  the  first  home  missionaries.  When 
Jesus  sent  him  out,  He  said  to  him,  "  Go 
home  to  thy  friends  and  tell  them  how  great 
things  Jesus  hath  done  for  thee." 

What  do  we  mean  by  "  home  "  ?  Where 
is  home?  It  is  the  house  we  live  in,  you 
say.  Yes,  that  is  home,  but  the  word 
"  home "  means  more  than  that.  If  you 
were  in  California  and  were  to  go  to  the 
railroad  office,  and  ask  the  agent  for  a  ticket 
home,  he  would  ask  you  where  your  home 
is,  and  you  would  tell  him  the  name  of  the 
town  in  which  you  live.  That  is  home.  But 
the  word  *'  home "  means  something  else. 
Suppose  you  were  in  Europe  and  some  one 
over  there  were  to  ask  you  where  your  home 
is,  you  would  say,  "  America  is  my  home." 
So  home  means  a  number  of  things.  It  is 
not  just  the  house  you  live  in,  but  your  town 
164 


How  to  be  a  Home  Missionary      165 

and  state  and  country.  This  makes  us  un- 
derstand what  a  home  missionary  is.  He  is 
one  who  tries  to  make  Christians  of  the 
people  in  his  home  and  his  town  and  his 
state  and  his  country. 

Every  boy  and  girl  ought  to  be  a  home 
missionary.  There  was  a  little  girl  whose 
father  was  not  a  Christian,  and  every  night 
when  she  knelt  down  by  her  mother*s  knee 
she  prayed,  "  Please  make  papa  a  Chris- 
tian," One  night  her  mother  was  sick,  and 
she  knelt  by  her  father,  when  she  said  her 
little  prayer.  He  heard  her  say,  **  Please 
make  papa  a  Christian."  After  she  was 
tucked  in  bed,  he  said  to  himself,  "  I  think 
it  is  about  time  I  helped  to  answer  that 
prayer,"  and  that  very  night  he  became  a 
Christian.  That  little  girl  was  a  missionary 
in  her  own  home. 

Then  we  can  be  missionaries  to  the  thou- 
sands of  people  all  over  the  country  who  do 
not  love  Jesus.  I  hear  some  boy  say  to  me, 
**  I  can't  go  and  tell  them  about  Jesus.  They 
are  too  many,  and  they  are  too  far  off."  But 
there  is  something  that  we  can  all  do.  Some 
one  told  me  of  a  little  boy  in  a  very  poor 
home  in  the  city.  He  had  learned  to  read, 
and  he  wanted  a  Bible  very  much,  and  there 
was  no  way  he  could  get  one  unless  some 


i66  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

one  gave  it  to  him.  Do  you  know  that  there 
are  a  great  many  children  in  this  country 
who  have  never  seen  a  Bible  or  a  Sunday- 
school.  Now  this  is  what  you  can  do.  You 
can  help  to  send  them  Bibles  and  Sunday- 
schools.  You  can  take  some  of  the  money 
that  you  spend  for  candy  and  soda  water 
and  ice-cream,  and  put  it  in  the  Home  Mis- 
sion collection  in  Sunday-school.  Ten  cents 
will  buy  a  Bible  for  some  little  girl  or  boy 
who  has  none.  That  is  lots  better  than  an 
ice-cream  soda,  isn't  it  ?     Let's  try  it  and  see. 

And  there  is  another  way  we  can  all  help. 
We  can  all  pray.  When  we  kneel  down  at 
night,  to  ask  God  for  the  things  that  we  want, 
let  us  not  forget  the  boys  and  girls  who  have 
no  Bibles  or  schools,  and  who  do  not  know 
about  Jesus. 

Jesus  wants  every  boy  and  girl  to  be  a 
home  missionary. 


XLIII 

The  Child  Samuel 

**  I  have  lent  him  unto  the  Lord." — i  Samuel  i.  28. 

Nearly  three  thousand  years  ago,  in  the 
land  of  Israel  there  was  born  a  little  boy- 
named  Samuel.  There  were  several  very 
interesting  things  about  this  boy.  About  a 
year  before,  his  mother,  Hannah,  had  prayed 
to  the  Lord  that  He  would  give  her  a  son, 
and  she  had  promised  that  if  He  would 
answer  her  prayer  she  would  give  him  to  the 
Lord.  Just  one  year  afterwards,  God  gave 
her  the  little  son  she  wanted  so  much.  For 
a  few  years,  while  he  was  very  small,  she 
kept  him  at  home,  but  as  soon  as  he  was  big 
enough,  she  remembered  her  promise,  and 
took  him  to  Shiloh  to  give  him  to  the  Lord. 

Some  people  make  promises  to  the  Lord 
and  never  keep  them.  Every  time  a  father 
and  mother  bring  their  baby  to  be  baptized 
they  promise  before  God  and  the  people  that 
they  will  bring  that  baby  up  as  a  Christian 
child.  And  then  sometimes  they  go  away 
and  forget  all  about  that  solemn  promise 
167 


1 68  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

they  have  made.  There  are  a  great  many 
boys  and  girls,  who  have  turned  out  badly, 
who  would  have  been  good  men  and  women, 
if  their  parents  had  kept  their  promises  to 
God. 

Now  Hannah  did  not  forget  her  promise. 
She  had  made  it  to  the  Lord  and  she  kept  it, 
even  though  it  must  have  made  her  heart 
ache  to  do  it. 

There  was  at  Shiloh  an  old  priest  named 
Eli.  Eli  had  charge  of  the  house  of  the 
Lord.  So  Hannah  took  the  little  boy  Samuel 
to  him,  and  asked  him  if  there  was  anything 
that  a  little  boy  could  do  in  the  house  of  the 
Lord,  for  she  wanted  to  give  him  to  the  Lord. 

Eli  said,  *'  Yes,  of  course  there  is.  I  am 
old  and  my  eyesight  is  getting  very  poor,  and 
I  need  a  little  boy  to  wait  on  me.  So  you 
leave  him  here  with  me." 

Hannah  was  very  glad  and  she  left  him 
there  to  wait  on  old  Eli.  That  was  one  way 
in  which  he  served  the  Lord,  by  being  good  to 
this  old  man.  This  is  the  way  in  which  God 
wants  some  of  us  to  serve  Him,  by  helping  to 
make  life  happy  and  pleasant  for  some  one 
who  is  old  and  cannot  take  care  of  himself. 
Some  of  you  boys  and  girls  have  old  grand- 
fathers or  grandmothers  who  are  not  as  spry 
as  they  used  to  be.     Perhaps  they  are  deaf, 


The  Child  Samuel  169 

or  maybe  they  can't  see  very  well.  Like  old 
Eli  they  need  some  one  who  is  quick  and  will- 
ing to  run  errands  for  them,  and  to  see  and 
hear  for  them. 

I  knew  a  little  girl  once  who  lived  in  the 
same  house  with  her  old  grandfather.  He 
couldn't  see  very  well  and  she  used  to  make 
it  her  business  to  find  his  slippers  for  him,  and 
his  spectacles,  and  when  the  print  was  too 
small  for  him,  she  would  read  to  him.  That 
is  what  Samuel  did  for  Eli.  He  ran  errands 
and  made  the  fire  when  it  was  cold,  and  read 
to  him  from  the  Bible,  and  did  everything 
that  he  could  to  help  him.  There  are  so 
many  children  who  wish  that  they  could  do 
something  for  God.  Samuel  wanted  to  too, 
and  God  said,  "  If  you  would  help  Me  the  best 
way  is  to  help  some  one  who  is  old  or  feeble 
and  helpless." 

One  of  the  papers  not  long  ago  was  telling 
the  story  of  a  poor  man  who  received  a  letter 
one  day  saying  that  a  woman  had  died  and 
left  him  a  great  deal  of  money.  He  thought 
it  was  very  strange  for  he  had  never  heard  of 
the  old  lady  and  he  wondered  why  she  should 
have  given  all  she  had  to  him.  But  there 
was  a  letter  that  explained  it.  The  old  lady 
said,  "  I  was  going  for  a  long  journey  on  the 
train  and  I  was  so  worried  and  troubled,  and 


lyo  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

there  was  no  one  who  paid  any  attention  to 
me  or  did  anything  for  me  but  a  young  man, 
who  was  so  kind  I  can  never  forget  him.  I 
haven't  any  one  else  to  leave  my  money  to, 
so  I  am  going  to  give  it  to  him." 

We  may  not  always  have  a  reward  like  this 
for  kindness  to  the  aged,  but  God  will  always 
reward  us  by  having  people  good  to  us  when 
we  are  old. 


XLIV 
The  Obedience  of  Samuel 

♦*  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth." — i  Samuel  in.  9. 

One  night  when  Samuel  was  about  twelve 
years  old,  as  he  was  sleeping  he  heard  a  voice 
saying,  "  Samuel !  Samuel ! "  He  said  to 
himself,  "  That  must  be  Master  Eli.  He 
wants  me  to  shut  the  door  or  the  window 
for  him.'*  So  he  went  to  Eli  and  asked  him 
what  he  wanted.  But  Eli  said,  '*  I  didn't  call 
you.     Go  and  lie  down  again." 

He  hadn't  been  lying  down  very  long  be- 
fore he  heard  the  voice  again.  So  he  jumped 
up  and  ran  to  Eli  and  said,  **  Here  I  am." 
But  Eli  said,  *'  I  did  not  call  you,  my  boy. 
You  must  have  been  dreaming.  Go  back  to 
your  bed  again." 

By  and  by  he  heard  it  again  very  plainly, 
"  Samuel,  Samuel."  This  time  he  knew  that 
there  was  no  mistake,  and  he  went  in  to  Eli 
and  said,  "  Here  I  am,  for  I  am  sure  you 
called  me." 

Then  Eli  knew  that  it  was  the  Lord  who 
had  spoken  to  him,  and  he  told  Samuel  that 
171 


172  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

if  he  heard  the  voice  again  to  say,  "  Speak, 
Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth." 

After  a  little  while,  sure  enough,  he  heard 
his  name  called  again.  He  said,  "Speak, 
Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth."  Then  the 
Lord  told  Samuel  many  things.  He  told 
him  that  Eli's  family  was  to  die  because  of 
the  wickedness  of  his  two  sons.  The  Lord 
also  told  him  that  if  he  was  a  good  boy,  that 
when  he  grew  up  he  would  be  the  ruler  of 
the  people  in  Eli's  place. 

Then  the  Lord  stopped  speaking  to  Samuel, 
and  it  was  soon  morning.  He  did  not  like  to 
get  up  that  day  for  he  knew  that  Eli  would 
want  to  know  what  the  Lord  had  said  to  him 
and  he  did  not  like  to  tell.  We  don't  any  of 
us  like  to  tell  people  unpleasant  things  about 
their  relatives.  But  very  soon  he  heard  Eli 
calling.  The  old  man  was  blind  and  very 
likely  Samuel  helped  him  to  get  dressed 
every  morning.  He  didn't  want  to  go,  but 
when  he  heard  Eli  calling  he  went. 

That  is  one  thing  I  want  you  to  remember 
about  Samuel.  He  was  obedient.  The  first 
thing  that  he  learned  in  the  house  of  the  Lord 
was  obedience.  The  first  thing  that  every 
one  of  us  ought  to  learn  is  obedience,  obedi- 
ence to  our  parents  and  to  God. 

There  was  once  an  English  army  officer 


The  Obedience  of  Samuel  173 

who  had  a  boy  about  fifteen  years  old.  They 
lived  in  the  suburbs  of  London,  and  the  fa- 
ther went  into  the  city  every  day.  One  morn- 
ing, just  before  he  left  for  the  city,  the  officer 
told  the  boy  to  be  at  London  Bridge  at  noon, 
and  to  wait  for  him  there.  Then  the  father 
went  on  to  the  city.  He  was  so  busy  all  day 
that  he  forgot  about  the  boy  till  he  reached 
home  late  that  night.  His  wife  met  him  at 
the  door  and  said,  "Where  is  Henry?" 
"  Why,"  said  the  father,  **  he  must  be  at 
London  Bridge.  I  told  him  to  meet  me 
there  at  noon,  and  I  forgot  all  about  it." 

He  hurried  back  to  the  city,  and  it  was 
almost  midnight  when  he  reached  the  bridge. 
It  was  raining  and  cold.  But  there  was 
Henry,  who  had  waited  all  day  because  his 
father  had  told  him  he  would  meet  him  there. 
That  boy,  Henry  Havelock,  became  one  of 
the  greatest  soldiers  that  England  ever  had. 
He  said  when  he  was  an  old  m.an  that  the 
best  lesson  he  ever  learned  was  the  lesson  of 
obedience. 

When  Samuel  was  an  old  man  he  was  one 
day  talking  to  a  young  man  who  had  dis- 
obeyed the  Lord.  He  said  to  him,  '*  To  obey 
is  better  than  sacrifice."  What  he  meant  was 
that  God  would  rather  have  us  obey  than 
anything  that  we  can  give  Him. 


174  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

I  once  knew  a  little  girl  who  had  disobeyed 
her  mother.  After  a  while  she  was  very  sorry 
and  went  out  and  picked  a  bunch  of  flowers 
and  brought  them  to  her  mother.  But  the 
mother  said  to  her,  **  I  would  rather  have 
your  obedience  than  all  the  flowers  that  you 
can  bring  me."  That  is  what  Samuel  meant 
when  he  said,  **  To  obey  is  better  than  sacri- 
fice." 


XLV 

Honesty,  or  Telling  the  Truth  With 
Our  Actions 

"They  that  deal  truly  are  His  delight." 
— Proverbs  xii.  22. 

One  night,  you  remember,  while  Samuel 
was  lying  in  his  bed,  God  told  him  of  the 
great  wickedness  of  the  sons  of  Eli,  and  that 
very  soon  He  would  punish  them  for  their 
sins.  The  next  morning  Eli  wanted  to  know 
what  the  Lord  had  said  to  him.  Samuel  did 
not  want  to  tell.  Some  boys  would  have  told 
a  lie.  They  would  have  left  out  what  God 
said  about  their  punishment,  or  they  would 
have  said  that  God  did  not  say  anything,  but 
Samuel  was  not  that  kind  of  a  boy.  He  was 
truthful  and  told  Eli  everything  that  the  Lord 
had  told  him. 

This  is  another  thing  about  Samuel  to  re- 
member. He  was  truthful.  Some  one  said 
once  that  when  a  child  is  not  truthful  there  is 
nothing  to  build  the  character  on.  That  is, 
truth  is  the  foundation  on  which  life  is  built 
If  a  house  has  a  poor  foundation,  the  first 
17s 


176  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

strong  wind  that  comes  along  will  blow  it 
over.  This  is  the  reason  fathers  and  moth- 
ers are  so  careful  about  whether  their  children 
are  truthful  or  not.  They  want  the  founda- 
tions of  character  to  be  strong  and  good. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  once  wrote  two  little  lines 
which  some  of  you  know  : 

**  Oh,  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave, 
When  first  we  practice  to  deceive." 

Let  me  tell  you  what  he  meant.  If  any  of 
you  girls  ever  tried  to  sew  with  a  thread  that 
was  too  long  you  know  what  happened. 
The  first  thing  you  knew  you  had  a  knot  in 
the  thread,  and  while  you  were  trying  to  get 
that  knot  out,  you  made  several  more  knots, 
and  the  more  you  tried  to  straighten  it  out, 
the  worse  it  was,  till  at  last  you  had  to  go  to 
your  mother  and  get  her  to  help  you. 

That  is  what  happens  when  we  tell  a  lie. 
We  have  to  tell  another  to  get  out  of  that, 
and  then  another,  and  another,  till  after  a 
little  we  have  such  a  tangle  of  falsehoods 
that  we  never  can  get  them  out  at  all.  The 
only  way  is  never  to  tell  the  first  one,  then 
we  will  never  have  the  tangled  web  to  un- 
ravel. 

Now  honesty  is  truth.  It  is  telling  the 
truth    with    our    actions.     There    are  some 


Telling  the  Truth  With  Our  Actions     177 

people  who  would  not  tell  an  untruth  with 
their  lips  for  anything.  No,  indeed !  But 
they  will  deceive  people  with  their  actions, 
and  that  is  just  as  bad.  We  can  tell  a  lie  by 
what  we  do  as  surely  as  by  what  we  say. 
We  call  that  kind  of  lying  dishonesty. 

Boys  and  girls  are  often  tempted  to  be  dis- 
honest. A  pupil  in  school  who  copies  some- 
body else's  work  and  then  makes  his  teacher 
beUeve  that  he  worked  it  himself,  is  dishon- 
est.    He  is  telling  a  lie  with  his  work. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  man  whose  daugh- 
ter was  engaged  to  marry  a  contractor  and 
builder.  The  man  thought  that  he  would 
give  them  a  home  for  a  wedding  present.  So 
some  months  before  the  marriage  was  to  take 
place,  he  sent  for  this  contractor,  and  said  to 
him,  '*  I  want  you  to  build  for  me  the  finest 
little  house  you  can  construct.  Put  into  it 
the  very  best  material  and  work  that  you 
can."  This  man  was  not  very  honest,  and 
he  thought  it  would  be  a  good  chance  to 
cheat  a  little.  So,  instead  of  putting  in  the 
best  lumber  and  brick,  he  used  very  poor 
material,  except  in  the  places  where  it 
showed,  and  had  the  cheapest  workmen.  At 
last  the  cottage  was  done,  and  the  owner 
came  to  see  it.  It  looked  very  fine,  for  the 
father  could  not  see  how  he  had  been  swin- 


178  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

died.  After  he  had  inspected  it,  he  said  to 
the  contractor,  *'  You  are  going  to  marry  my 
daughter,  and  I  have  built  this  cottage  to 
give  you  for  a  wedding  present,  and  you  are 
to  live  in  it." 

Then  the  man  knew  that  in  trying  to  cheat 
some  one  else  he  had  been  the  loser  himself. 
That  is  always  the  way  in  this  world.  The 
man  who  is  dishonest  with  others,  will  find 
that  he  is  the  one  who  has  been  the  loser, 
and  he  himself  will  have  to  live  in  the  house 
that  he  has  made.  Let  us  be  truthful  in  our 
actions  as  well  as  our  words. 


XLVI 

Christmas 

**  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.** 
— Acts  xx.  35. 

If  you  will  turn,  in  your  Bibles,  to  the  third 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  John,  to  the  third 
verse,  you  will  read  there  of  the  first  Christ- 
mas gift  in  all  the  world.  "  For  God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only  be- 
gotten Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life." 
That  was  the  greatest  and  the  grandest  gift 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  was  the  gift 
of  God  to  us,  of  His  dear  Son  on  that  first 
Christmas  night  so  long  ago.  This  is  the 
reason  we  give  gifts  to  the  poor,  and  to  one 
another,  because  God  gave  us  that  priceless 
gift  of  His  Son. 

There  is  a  lovely  story  of  a  baby  sitting  on 
the  floor,  when,  all  at  once,  she  saw  a  little 
sunbeam  shining  on  the  carpet.  She  crept 
over  and  kissed  it.  The  sunshine  is  the  smile 
of  God,  and  so  the  baby  loved  it.  It  is  this 
that  makes  Christmas  happy  and  bright.  It 
179 


i8o  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

is  the  sunshine  of  the  love  of  God,  who  gave 
to  us  Jesus  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 

The  words  of  our  little  text  are  very  appro- 
priate for  Christmas  time  or  for  any  time. 
"It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive." Let  us  think  of  one  or  two  rea- 
sons why  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive. 

First,  it  makes  us  richer  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive, not  richer  in  money,  but  in  some  things 
that  are  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  money. 
In  New  York  State  in  the  Catskills  there  is  a 
lake.  There  are  a  great  many  Uttle  streams 
that  flow  into  it,  and  there  is  one  big  stream 
that  flows  out  of  it,  to  water  the  thirsty  city 
of  New  York.  Every  day  of  the  year  that 
little  lake  gives  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
gallons  of  water  to  that  great  city.  It  is  just 
give,  give,  give.  And  the  water  is  perfectly 
pure  and  sweet.  It  is  pure  and  good  be- 
cause it  is  always  giving. 

Over  in  the  land  of  Palestine  there  is 
another  lake.  There  are  plenty  of  streams 
flowing  into  this  lake,  too,  but  there  are  no 
streams  flowing  out  of  it.  This  lake  takes 
everything  that  it  can  get  and  it  never  gives 
up  a  drop  for  others.  Do  you  know  the 
name  of  that  lake?  It  is  called  the  Dead 
Sea.     It  is  called  by  that  name  because  the 


Christmas  l8l 

water  is  poisonous.  Nothing  can  live  in  it 
and  it  is  not  safe  to  build  a  house  too  near  it. 

The  boy  and  girl  who  are  always  receiving, 
and  never  giving,  are  bound  by  and  by  to  be- 
come so  selfish  and  hard  that  no  one  will 
care  much  for  them.  But  those  who  give  be- 
come kind  and  generous  and  thoughtful  and 
are  loved  by  every  one. 

Second,  it  makes  us  happier  to  give  than  to 
receive.  I  know  a  Sunday-school  class  whose 
members  always  gave  gifts  to  each  other 
at  Christmas.  But  one  year  they  decided 
they  would  do  something  different.  They 
took  the  money  they  had  been  spending  on 
each  other,  and  found  a  poor  home  where 
there  would  be  no  Christmas,  and  set  to 
work  to  make  it  bright  and  happy  for  the 
children.  What  a  fine  time  they  had  get- 
ting ready,  and  then  the  night  before  Christ- 
mas, they  all  went  to  the  house,  and  trimmed 
a  tree  for  the  little  ones,  putting  on  it  the 
things  that  they  had  brought.  One  of  them 
said  afterwards,  '*  It  was  the  very  best  Christ- 
mas any  of  us  have  ever  had."  "  It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

And  the  greatest  and  best  reason  of  all 
why  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive is  because  when  we  give  to  the  poor 
we  are  giving  to  Jesus. 


i82  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

There  is  a  pretty  story  of  a  man  who  was 
coming  one  Christmas  Eve  h'om  his  work. 
He  was  thinking  of  his  little  children  and 
what  a  good  time  they  would  all  have  the 
next  day.  All  at  once  he  saw  a  little  boy 
in  the  street,  ragged  and  hungry  and  almost 
frozen.  He  stopped  and  asked  him  where 
his  home  was  and  the  boy  said  that  he  had 
no  home.  The  man  lifted  him  up  in  his 
arms  and  carried  him  to  his  own  house,  and 
they  gave  him  something  to  eat  and  tucked 
him  in  bed  with  the  rest  of  the  children. 

When  the  house  was  quiet  the  father  and 
mother  began  to  prepare  the  Christmas  gifts 
for  the  children.  But  they  did  not  have  any- 
thing for  the  little  stranger.  They  were  very 
poor  and  had  been  saving  their  money  for 
weeks  so  that  they  might  have  a  goose  for 
dinner  the  next  day.  They  talked  it  over 
and  decided  that  they  would  do  without  the 
goose,  and  have  just  potatoes  and  porridge 
for  dinner  so  that  he  might  have  a  happy 
Christmas,  too.  So  when  the  children  woke 
up  the  next  day  there  were  some  warm 
clothing  and  shoes  for  the  little  boy  they 
had  found. 

And  how  happy  he  was  I  By  and  by  they 
sat  down  together  for  prayers,  when  each 
child  was  asked  to  say  a  verse.     When  it 


Christmas  183 

came  the  turn  of  the  Httle  stranger  he  said, 
"  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done 
it  unto  me."  And  then  He  was  gone.  It 
was  Jesus  Himself  who  had  come  to  them 
that  Christmas  day. 

When  we  do  a  kindness  to  one  of  those 
who  suffer  or  are  in  want,  we  are  doing  it  to 
Him.     "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 


XLVII 
The  Best  Life  for  the  New  Year 

"  What  wilt  thou  have  me  to  do  ? " — Acts  ix.  60 

Whenever  one  of  you  boys  meets  a 
stranger  he  is  almost  sure  to  ask  you  be- 
fore long,  ''  Well,  what  are  you  going  to  be 
when  you  grow  up  ?  "  Some  of  you  will  be 
business  men  like  your  fathers,  and  some 
will  be  lawyers,  and  others  doctors,  and 
some,  I  hope,  will  be  ministers,  which  is 
best  of  all,  and  there  are  some  of  the  girls 
who  will  teach,  and  there  are  many  of  you, 
like  your  mothers,  who  will  have  homes  to 
care  for.  It  is  a  very  important  question,  to 
decide  just  what  you  are  to  do  with  your 
life,  but  there  is  something  that  is  even  more 
serious  than  the  question  as  to  the  occupa- 
tion or  profession  we  are  going  to  follow. 
It  is  the  question  as  to  what  kind  of  a  life 
we  are  going  to  live  this  new  year  and 
every  year.  You  know  we  only  have  one 
life  and  we  all  need  to  make  the  very  best 
of  it  that  we  can. 

How  can  we  live  the  best  life  ? 
184 


The  Best  Life  for  the  New  Year     185 

First  we  can  make  our  lives  as  near  like 
the  plan  God  has  given  us  as  possible.  When 
this  big  church  was  being  built,  I  used  to 
come  and  see  the  builder  every  day.  He  had 
some  plans  marked  off  on  blue  paper,  which 
the  architect  had  made,  and  it  was  his  busi- 
ness to  make  everything  just  like  that  plan. 
God  has  given  us  a  plan  for  life.  It  is  the 
Bible,  and  He  expects  us  to  make  our  Hves 
as  near  as  possible  like  the  life  of  Jesus,  as  it 
is  described  in  this  book. 

Most  of  you  have  played  with  picture  puz- 
zles. They  are  made,  you  know,  by  cutting 
a  thin  piece  of  board  into  a  great  many  queer 
shapes.  The  puzzle  is  to  put  them  all  to- 
gether. With  each  puzzle  there  comes  a  pic- 
ture-plan, which  shows  exacdy  how  they  go. 
By  looking  at  that  plan,  you  know  how  to  fit 
them  together. 

Our  lives  are  very  much  like  one  of  these 
puzzles.  There  are  many  things  about  them 
that  we  do  not  understand  at  all.  But  God 
has  given  us,  with  our  lives,  a  plan  which 
shows  us  what  we  ought  to  do.  That  plan  is 
the  Bible.  If  we  will  consult  the  Bible  every 
day  we  will  know  how  we  ought  to  live. 

My  litde  girl  had  one  of  these  puzzles  and 
she  was  very  fond  of  playing  with  it,  till  one 
day  her  little  brother  came  along  and  tore  up 


i86  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

the  plan,  and  then  she  couldn't  fit  the  puzzle 
together  very  well  because  the  plan  was 
lost. 

In  the  same  way  there  are  some  people  who 
have  lost  their  Bibles  and  they  do  not  know 
how  to  live.  If  you  would  live  the  best  life, 
be  sure  and  do  not  lose  the  plan.  Read  and 
study  the  Bible. 

That  is  the  first  thing,  and  here  is  the  sec- 
ond. Whatever  we  do  we  ought  to  ask  the 
question,  ''  Is  this  what  God  would  have  me 
do?"  Over  in  England  there  is  a  great  or- 
phan asylum,  which  takes  care  of  hundreds 
of  poor  boys  and  girls  who  have  no  fathers 
or  mothers.  It  was  built  a  great  many  years 
ago,  by  a  merchant  who  gave  all  his  money 
to  it.  If  you  were  to  go  and  visit  that  asylum 
they  would  show  you  the  ledger  in  which  the 
man  who  founded  it  used  to  keep  his  business 
accounts.  At  the  top  of  every  page,  at  the 
beginning  of  every  day,  he  wrote,  **  To  the 
glory  of  God."  In  every  business  deal  he 
made  he  tried  to  think  of  the  glory  of  God. 
And  then,  when  he  died,  he  left  all  he  had 
made  to  the  glory  of  God,  to  take  care  of  the 
orphans. 

This  is  a  splendid  rule  for  us  all.  When 
we  go  to  school,  when  we  go  to  play,  what- 
ever we  do,  let  us  make  up  our  minds  that 


The  Best  Life  for  the  New  Year    187 

we  are  going  to  try  to  do  it  just  as  we  know 
God  would  have  us.  That  is  the  way  to 
make  the  most  of  our  time  and  live  the  best 
life. 

Sometimes  young  people  ask,  "  Is  it  wrong 
for  me  to  do  that?"  mentioning  some  pleasure 
they  love  very  much.  There  is  one  answer 
to  all  such  questions  :  **  Can  you  do  that  to 
the  glory  of  God  ? "  If  you  cannot  read  a 
certain  book  to  the  glory  of  God,  better  not 
read  it.  If  you  cannot  go  to  a  party  to  the 
glory  of  God,  better  stay  home.  If  you  can- 
not associate  with  some  companion  to  God's 
glory,  it  would  be  better  to  lose  his  friend- 
ship. 


XLVIII 
The  Resurrection 

**  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life." — ^John  xi.  25. 

After  Jesus  was  crucified,  they  took  His 
body  and  put  it  in  a  tomb,  a  little  room  that 
had  been  cut  in  the  rock,  to  put  dead  bodies 
in.  Then  they  fastened  the  stone  door  of  the 
tomb  and  came  away.  They  thought  that 
was  the  end  of  Jesus.  But  it  wasn't.  Three 
days  after,  a  woman  named  Mary  Magdalene 
went  out  to  see  the  tomb.  Easter  Sunday 
you  will  see  a  great  many  people  going  out 
to  the  cemetery,  to  put  flowers  on  the  graves 
of  their  loved  ones.  Whenever  you  see  a 
good  woman,  going  to  the  grave  of  some  one 
she  loves,  think  of  this  Mary  long  ago,  who 
went  out  there  to  see  the  tomb  of  Jesus  that 
Sunday  morning.  When  she  reached  there, 
the  tomb  was  open,  and  the  body  of  Jesus  was 
gone.  She  thought  at  first  that  some  one 
had  come  and  stolen  it.  When  she  turned 
around  there  was  a  man  standing  there.  She 
thought  it  was  the  gardener,  and  began  to  ask 
him  some  questions.  Then  he  spoke  to  her, 
188 


The  Resurrection  189 

and  she  knew  that  it  was  Jesus.  He  had 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  come  out  of  the  tomb, 
and  was  aUve  once  more. 

Almost  all  of  us  have  had  some  one,  whom 
we  loved  very  much,  who  has  died,  and  we 
had  to  take  the  body  and  put  it  in  the  ceme- 
tery. We  have  been  very  sad,  because  we 
have  thought  that  we  would  never  see  him 
any  more.  But  we  will  see  him  again.  Just 
as  Jesus  died  and  rose  again,  so  those  we  love 
are  going  to  rise  by  and  by,  too. 

When  you  lie  down  to  sleep  at  night,  you 
don't  know  anything  for  a  few  hours.  Then 
you  wake  up,  and  it  is  morning,  and  you  are 
all  ready  to  begin  the  day.  Jesus  says  that 
death  is  like  that.  When  people  die  they  go 
to  sleep  for  a  little  while.  We  lay  them  away, 
just  as  your  mother  tucks  you  in  bed  when 
you  are  asleep,  and  then  by  and  by  when  the 
Lord  is  ready,  He  calls  to  them  to  get  up,  as 
your  father  calls  you  in  the  morning. 

Some  boy  says  to  me,  "  How  is  God  going 
to  make  the  body  come  together  again  ? " 
We  do  not  know  how  He  is  going  to  do  it, 
but  God  can  do  a  great  many  things  that  we 
cannot  do,  and  that  we  do  not  know  anything 
about.  Men  can  do  wonderful  things  that  we 
do  not  understand,  and  God  is  much  more 
powerful  than  any  man. 


190  The  Soul  of  a  Child 

Some  one  was  telling  me  of  a  workman, 
who  was  one  day  working  with  a  beautiful 
silver  cup,  when  it  slipped  out  of  his  hand 
and  fell  into  a  very  strong  acid  and  was  dis- 
solved. There  was  not  a  thing  left  of  it.  The 
acid  had  eaten  it  up.  Then  he  took  another 
liquid  and  threw  it  in,  and  the  silver  all  ap- 
peared again,  and  he  took  it  out  and  made  a 
silver  cup  of  it  again. 

In  the  same  way  we  believe  that  when  the 
body  has  disappeared,  God  is  able  to  gather 
it  all  together  again  and  make  it  live  once 
more. 

Another  boy  says,  **  What  kind  of  a  body 
are  we  going  to  have  when  we  rise  again? 
Is  it  going  to  be  just  like  the  body  that  we 
have  now  ?  "  No,  God  says  that  it  isn't.  He 
told  us  about  the  wheat.  If  you  plant  a  seed 
in  the  ground,  by  and  by  it  comes  up.  It  is 
not  the  same  seed  that  comes  up,  but  it  is  very 
much  like  it.  So  the  body  that  God  gives  us, 
after  the  resurrection,  will  not  be  the  same 
one,  but  very  much  like  it. 

We  would  not  want  a  body  in  heaven  just 
like  the  one  we  have  on  the  earth.  You  do 
not  wear  the  same  clothes  to  play  in,  and  to  go 
to  church  in.  So  the  soul  will  have  different 
clothes,  when  it  gets  to  heaven,  because  it  is  a 
very  dififerent  place. 


The  Resurrection  191 

All  our  happiness  and  hope  at  Easter  time, 
as  we  think  that  we  are  going  to  see  our 
loved  ones  again,  is  because  Jesus  rose  again. 
So  we  ought  all  of  us  to  thank  God,  every  day 
that  we  live,  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead. 


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